Perfect People, Need Not Apply

Groucho Marx was famous for saying he wouldn't want to belong to any club that would let him in. If a church must be perfect to satisfy you, that same perfection will exclude you from membership, because you're not perfect! Every church could put out a sign "No perfect people need apply. This is a place only for those who admit they are sinners, need grace, and want to grow." - Rick Warren

I remember not quite long ago listening to one of Ps Tony Evans sermons describing the chuch as a hospital, hospital for the sick. As I further thought, its true those who think they are well, do not go to the hospital, those who think they are good enough in whatever they are doing that all they do doing their best is what matters most will not go to church because they do not need others, they do not need God, they only need themselves, they depend on themselves and whatever resources around them (that too they may not realize it is God who provides), certainly they dont think others need them too because if they knew the hospital is full of sick people and "they want to do good, want to help" they would show up! But they do not know.. and our childhood, media, family, friends, everything we have ever come across that we've been feeding on doesnt help us to know, and so we become dead to such things, let alone respond to it. Not only do people not respond to it, but they add on what they learn from the world to what they believe is what Christ is all about, is all what God is all about ... is what the church is all about. How dangerous can that be .. further taking us away from God, who desires to reconcile with us, giving us the abundant life with the one and only true living God. Another sermon on AM800 last year (LWF if not mistaken, Ps. Adrian Rogers) said something I remember vividly, that Jesus did not come so people can learn to be good but He came so the dead would be alive to God! If we look unto the church or other Christians, what an awful deal it is, almost short-changed - we rather forgo God having a relationship with us just because the sick acted like they were not sick (hypocrisy) or we expect the sick to not act like they are sick but act like they are well when they are sick (unrealistic expectations). That was me until the Lord spoke to me and said, "You're not looking at the right coordinate. Follow me and I'll show you the way" It was purely God's grace, certainly not something I could have caused, created, earned with my own mighty effort or smartness. After all I am nothing but dust from the ground, and if I have something, it was given to me in the first place, by God who loves not only me, but the world.

Source: Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren, pg. 163