You are called to be a Saint - Yes! You!

Cross post from Pilgrims Progress:

You are called to be a saint of God. You – yes you! You might think, how could I be a saint? I have already messed up my life, I am beyond redemption. Before you stick to your 'excuse', you might want to look at the lives of these people who allowed themselves to be open to God and to be used by God to do mighty things. They were far from 'holy'!
Check this list out:
Noah got drunk
Abraham was too old
Sarah laughed at God’s plans...
Isaac was a daydreamer
Jacob was a trickster
Joseph, well he was a show off in that fancy coat of his.
Moses stammered
Miriam gossiped
Gideon was insecure
Samson – let’s just say ‘my, my my, Delilah!’
Rahab was a prostitute
Ruth was a foreigner
 

David was an adulterer and murdered Bathsheba’s husband.
Isaiah...er, preached naked for three years
Jeremiah struggled with depression
Jonah ran from God...
and in the New Testament:
Zaccheus was too small
the woman at the well had had five husbands
Martha was a worrier
Mary Magdalene was demon-possessed
Peter denied Christ
the Disciples fell asleep while praying in the garden
Thomas doubted
Timothy was too young
Paul was too religious
Lazarus ... Lazarus was dead!
These ‘superheroes’ of the faith... were everyday flawed and fallible human beings, who God calledYet God doesn’t call superheroes – they don’t really exist except for in comic books.

God calls us: Calls us, imperfect yet beloved, people to fix our eyes on Jesus

And, as we do so, we are cheered on by that great cloud of witnesses who remind us that, as we run, we are not alone – we run the race with everyday saints past and present and are a part of something so much bigger than we can possibly imagine... but in faith we have hope: hope for a brighter future -
We may or may not see that future, but we run the race knowing who holds the future in his hands.