I think the overarching point is if the inside is dirty one won’t care what the outside looks like.
THAT is certainly true.
I am reminded of a friend long ago.
To say the guy was rough around the edges is the understatement of the century. He pushed many of the Christians at church right over the edge.
However, considering where he came from, he made LIGHT YEARS of progress spiritually. I always contended that if all the other Christians who condemned him so freely made as much spiritual progress as he had, that church would have transformed the community. You wouldn't recognize it.
But, no, in their self-righteous back patting, they weren't like him.
Maybe on the outside....
On the inside, I daresay that God was more pleased with his sincere heart than his social decorum.
And there were things in his life that would have been considered blatant sin for someone else. Problem is, he had SO much baggage, that there just some things that had to wait.
In essence, God was dealing with what HE saw as most necessary, not what we think is.
IMO, if someone is making progress, that's all I care about.
Interesting thing is, I have an acquaintance who, by the charismatic standards, is *saved*. She professes to love God and had some kind of experience. She's spoken in tongues, gotten slain in the Spirit, and all that.
And God has honestly delivered her from alcohol.
However, she went back to it and in the more than year that I've known her, has made no progress spiritually.
She's one person who, although God clearly did something for her, I am really beginning to question if she's really saved.
Not because she still struggles. But she isn't evidencing the real kind of changed heart you would expect. Yes, she does want to be freed from her problems but seems to see God as the mechanism for that but does not seem to have a desire to KNOW Him.