Like most people, I have scars on different parts of my body. My scars send a message. They say that I exist and that I’m here to be a warning for others. Don’t do what I just did.
Have you ever stopped someone from trying a stunt by pointing to a scar and saying, “Wait! Let me show you what happens when you do that”?
Scars come with benefits. Scars can make you smarter. Every time I grab a box cutter, I have one thought: Lord in heaven, please do not let me do that again!
I’ve taught people to be careful with knives my whole life, but while using a box cutter for a weekend event, I cut in the wrong direction and sliced a chunk out of my thumb. Several stitches later, I had a scar on the way. For the next several years, when we passed out box cutters to prepare for an event, guess who did not pick up one. I found a way to work on posters.
Scars can serve as a warning to be more cautious. But other kinds of scars just haunt us. They stay with us and change everything about us. They can even change what we decide we believe about God.
Many Christians trudge through each day with a defeated mind-set thinking, Some of my biggest failures have been since I was saved. How are we supposed to deal with that?
Think back to Paul’s life. He began as an enemy of the church. Jesus changed him as he headed to Damascus to put more Christians in jail. He intended to tear apart more families and maybe even kill more people. He had watched the stoning of the first Christian martyr, Stephen. Then Jesus stopped Paul in his tracks and changed his heart. Think he had some scars in his life?
There’s no verse for this, but I wonder if Paul ever went into a city to spread the gospel and stood to preach before someone whose parents were in prison at that moment because of him.
The thing about scars is, they don’t go away.
Believers sometimes send mixed messages. We say, “Stay away from sin. You have to run from this junk because it’s going to mess you up.” Then we toss in the confusing part: “But if you do mess up, God will totally forgive you and restore you.”
Both messages are true, but they prompt legitimate questions I hear all the time. For example, someone might tell me, “You know, I hear Christians saying I need to stay away from sin. But for everyone who has already blown it, they say, ‘It’s all good. God takes care of it.’ Why not just — ‘make my own mistakes’?”
It leaves us thinking maybe it’s not that big a deal to fail. But is it a big deal?
Yes.
As bad and ugly and disfiguring as physical scars are, spiritual scars cut much deeper and haunt us much longer. Any time we step forward to follow Jesus, what does the Accuser do? He points to our scars. Remember that time you stood up in front of everyone and made your profession of faith and said, “I’m all for Jesus now”? How did that go? Or how about that time you signed your little purity commitment? How did that turn out for you?
The Enemy constantly points to our failures. So how should we answer him? The same way Jesus did. With Scripture. Here’s an example:
Paul knew we all have scars, but he tells us that’s not a negative. Paul sees his past as his past. One verse after saying he is the worst sinner ever, he offers us this hope: “I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience” (1 Timothy 1:16).
Philippians shows that Paul dealt with his scars in a clever way. He used them to trumpet God’s grace both to himself concerning his past and to others concerning their future.
In Philippians 3, Paul counters false teachers who boast about themselves. He recites a long list of reasons that he could boast about himself if he wanted, but then he does something unexpected. He says he counts every bit of his accomplishments as rubbish compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus and making him known.
Paul says his new goal is to be found in Christ with a righteousness not his own but with one that comes through faith in Jesus. Then comes Philippians 3:12 – 14:
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
In other words, Paul tells his friends in Philippi, “I’m not done yet. I’m like half-baked cornbread. If you look inside of me spiritually, it’s just a giant vat of mush that’s not complete.” Paul says he presses on but he’s not spiritually perfected. But one thing he does — he forgets about his past. Not that he doesn’t remember those events. They’re impossible to forget. He just reckons himself righteous because Jesus said he is, and he chooses not to allow those past mistakes to dictate his present and future. He presses on toward the goals that God has for his life, which are to grow closer to Jesus and to tell others about him.
In the previous chapter, I showed you 1 Timothy 1:15. It’s one of those verses where Paul rolls up his sleeves and lets us all in on his scars. He admits he blasphemed God and persecuted followers of Christ. He admits he was an “insolent opponent” of Jesus (verse 13). I also showed you verse 16, but I intentionally edited out the verse’s final phrase. “I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life” (emphasis added).
Paul talked about his scars to give an example to those with whom he shared the gospel. He realized he had to keep it real.
I talked about scars in a church one night and asked people to share the stories behind their scars. Hands went up all over the room. Arms, ankles, knees, elbows, and eyebrows brought giggles as cameras highlighted their scars on the big screen. But if I had waited until the end of the message and said, “Show us your real scars. Share your failures and how you have blown it,” a hush would have fallen over the room.
You might notice something weird happens when church people, especially adults, get together. We feel we need to live to honor God, but we can never let others see our weaknesses. That’s when you get the folks who spit out, “Hey, brother. God’s good, ain’t he? Bless God, I’m better than I deserve.”
I want you to know that church is the place to be broken together. It’s the place to say, “I really need y’all to pray for me because I’m not in the Word and I’m not praying and I don’t really want to do either one. Pray for me.”
So don’t be fooled by those who pretend everything is OK when it’s really not. When you’re cut up and beat up, and you’re scared to let anybody know, there’s no verse that says you have to look like you have it all together.
If you’re hurting and think you’re failing, you have to talk to somebody. You’ll find that you’re not alone — because you are not. We all have scars. I sit with teenagers almost every day who are breaking down and being transparent. They don’t parrot Christianese and claim that they’ve been perfect in their quiet time. They’re saying, “I’m stinking this up, and I don’t know why, and I hate myself for it.”
God can handle your scars. So can any genuine, loving Christian. There will always be somebody who raises an eyebrow at what you say, but you still need to open up to the body of Christ around you and start being the honest person you wish everybody else would be. Don’t worry about being judged by people. It’s far worse to never change and ultimately face God’s judgment. We all have to start being honest with God and honest with each other.
It has to start with someone saying, “I have scars, and I’m afraid God doesn’t love me anymore. I need to know what to do.”
I have to use the eyes of Jesus when I look at my past. I have to accept that his Word says my past is paid for and my slate is wiped clean. Jesus took my sin and spread it as far as the east is from the west. It’s gone.
But . . .
But I can’t act like it didn’t happen. Instead of my past — even as recent as yesterday — haunting me and dragging me back into it, I can use it. If I see my past through the eyes of Jesus, then I see it as fodder for another soul. I see it as my story that I can use to build a bridge to someone else (more on this in chapter 28).
Your scars are your road map to God’s grace in your life.
If we act like we have it all together, not only is it untrue but everyone sees through the façade as well. Phony never led anyone to Jesus. If we would see some of the bad choices we’ve made as a way to point other people to Jesus, we would allow Jesus to go Romans 8:28 on our past and turn it into good. Some people believe their past is so bad that not even God can redeem it, but God said he makes all things new (Revelation 21:5).
When you seek to thrive by digging deep to grow your roots, God explains who he is and who you are, and you see your past in a different light. It doesn’t scare you anymore. You don’t worry about people discovering your skeletons. You don’t freak out about your weaknesses anymore because you see that the Bible is full of fools, outlaws, and ordinary people. God used them, and his Word will convince you that he’ll use you too.
Some of us don’t think we can get past our past. We don’t have to. God took care of our past and is ready to hand it back to us, redeemed, as his tool.
Thankfully, that tool is not a box cutter.
Point to Remember
We can use our scars as a road map of God’s grace in our lives.