This was shared with me and I wanted to share with you. Hope you find hope in this as much as I did.

How to Glorify God Through Your Imperfections

Posted on 09 December 2010
Tags: How to overcome sin


Did you know that you can honor God through the bad things that you do? I hope you know this. If you don’t know this truth then you are probably truncating the potential that you could have for making God’s name great. Honoring God through the bad things that we do does not get as much airplay as honoring God through righteousness, obedience, and holy living. However, I think it is important to talk about how we can magnify God through our imperfections. The reason for this is because we are imperfect.

Exploring imperfection

We have yet to attain sinless perfection in this life. And the truth of the matter is, we will never be sinlessly perfected in this life. Therefore, if we cannot honor God through our imperfections then we cannot honor God completely. Let’s say, though I know this could be perceived as silly, that we are 70% perfect and 30% imperfect. I realize some of you are probably more perfect than 70%, but work with me here, okay?

According to my math, you can only honor God up to 70% because that is your personal best for the good things that you can do. Therefore, seventy percent of the time you are walking in holiness, obeying God, making his name great, serving others, worshipping Him with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength. However, there is a pocket of sin or weakness or areas that have yet to be conquered and biblically refined in your life. In my illustration, that amounts to about 30% of your total self.

What if I told you that you could make God’s name great through your imperfections? That you no longer have to limit all of the possibilities that God could perform through you? And what would you have to do?

First of all, you would have to acknowledge that you have made mistakes, that you have sinned. You cannot honor God nor make His name great by hiding part of the truth about yourself. But it gets better than just being honest. Let’s suppose that you become more specific and open about who you really are. You decide that you’re going to put the power back into the Gospel by exposing the details of your imperfections. Anyone who has ever done this knows exactly what I am talking about. They have experienced the release, relief, power, and blessing that comes through confession.

Not only would God be more glorified because of your sin, but He would extend grace to you to help you overcome your sin. Jesus was glad when Lazarus died because it was an opportunity for Him to help His friends trust Him more. (John 11:14-15) It is through our weaknesses that God’s strength is made perfect. The Father came for the weak, downcast, imperfect, and sick. There is no grace for the perfect, healthy, and sufficient.

But it gets even better than this. The more honest you are about your weaknesses and sins, the more He is able to inspire others by your humble example.

The temptation to be perfect

A person who does not acknowledge his imperfections is a person who is truncating some of the possibilities of what God could do through him. A person who does not acknowledge his imperfections is, in essence, “limiting God.” The reason the Gospel exists is because of sin. If we say we have no sin, then we are saying that the Gospel is purposeless and we have no need for the Gospel. A person who is unwilling to come clean about his sin is a person who does not understand the Gospel. He is mocking the Gospel.

One of the primary temptations in this area of not owning our sin is our desire to appear righteous before others. Just like the Pharisees of old, we are too easily stuck on ourselves. How we come across and what people think about us tends to matter too much to us. And because of this we are tempted to promote and present the good things that we do while suppressing and hiding our foibles.

The benefits offered to the sinning Christian

A person who understands the Gospel is a person who is aggressively honest about who he really is. And this kind of humble awareness and acknowledgement opens the door to an entire constellation of benefits that the proud embarrassed-about-my-sin-kind-of-person cannot enjoy. Let me give you a list of benefits that are offered to the person who is willing to be honest about who he really is:

Boldness Grace Freedom Integrity Transparency
Authenticity Joy Peace with God Restoration Guilt-free
Clear Conscience Lack of fear No Shame No Regret True Forgiveness
Wisdom Empowerment God’s Pleasure Blessing Honesty
Hope Confidence Greater Usefulness Ongoing Repentance Discernment
Reconciliation Contentment No Hypocrisy Accountability Humility
God-centered Encouraging An Example Selfless Servant
The person who limits the power of the Gospel through their lack of transparency is like a reservoir held back by a dam. You are a person with the Spirit, but the Spirit is quenched and grieved because of your stubborn pride. In this life you will not be able to honor God as a fully perfected person. Therefore, I thank God for the Gospel because the Gospel opens the door of possibility where we have the opportunity to glorify God through our weaknesses.

Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. -The Savior, Mark 2:17 (ESV)

Application Questions

Why do you fear being honest with others?
How has your lack of transparency hindered or hurt certain relationships?
Do you lead by example in confessing your sins to others, thus releasing others to emulate you?
Do you create contexts of grace that inspires your friends to tell you their temptations?