Often times, we have heard lines as this. Some of us have heard it said to us, maybe when we one way of the other did not live up to the standard they expected of folks like us.
Sometimes with regret, you ask yourself some questions such as,
WHAT WOULD JESUS HAVE REALLY DONE?
WOULD A TRUE PASTOR HAVE DONE SUCH?
Truly, you may have answered these questions as THE OTHER WAY and NO respectively.
But friend know this, no inadequacies of yours make you any lesser than a Believer, a Son of God.
You may have reacted violently, even engaged in a physical combat, exchanged insulting words, yet these things are not enough for you to allow your Salvation to be questioned.
The worst part of it is that these words don't come from people who are morally upright [as you are].
They just want to talk.
Well, Friend, the Believer is not the one free from the imperfections of the flesh.
He posseses an imperfect body and lives amidst folks with a different background and temperament different to that which he can sometimes bear, he can get angry and be vexed.
Rather, the Believer is the one with the knowledge of the Spirit and by the same Spirit subducts these feelings.
Though he may sometimes act contrary to the nature of the Spirit in him, yes, he leads an imperfect body and for the same imperfections, justification came/is without the body.
The Believer is not the Perfect by conduct, no, his perfection is a function of God through Christ.
Regardless of his conduct, he is justified by God, not men, taught by God, not men.
Friend, your lashes lie with no man.
Romans 8:33-34
[33] Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth.
[34]Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
But He has chosen to not bounce on you onto condemnation.
This makes it simple,
THE BELIEVER IN CHRIST IS NOT SEEN BY GOD IN THE EYES OF MEN.
THE BELIEVER IS SEEN BY GOD IN CHRIST, A PERFECT BEING.
[“IN CHRIST I AM PERFECT, AND FAR ABOVE CONDEMNATION.”]
You may in the past have engaged in things among men that made them to say to you, “AND YOU CALL YOURSELF A PASTOR”, which may have dropped your morale, made/makes you think you have not represented God well.
And these things have been haunting you, depriving you from ministering to them (men) as you ought to.
Friend, do away with those thoughts of men, they don't recommend you to God.
Instead, see the thought of God over you.
You are not what men call you.
You are who God says, PERFECT REGARDLESS OF CONDUCT.
Henceforth, go out and minister to men the things of the Spirit with boldness in all goodness, righteousness and truth and above your feelings of weakness/imperfections.
Blessed.
Hagios Akins