Depending on which word processor you use to write, it might suggest that the name Rahab is a misspelled version of rehab. This is beautifully ironic.
Rahab’s life is an example of a rehab. How is it that this one seemingly worthless life was spared in Jericho and not the poets or the CEOs or the athletes? Why the prostitute?
It’s simple. Rahab turned in faith to God. You see the gospel is about rehabs. Reclamation projects. Failures. Bust-outs. Jesus offered something different from living a life of perfection, checking off good deeds or trying to be holier than those around you.
He said he didn’t come for those who think they are good, but those who know they are bad. He came for the Rahabs of the world, who carry a label they can’t shake. She was a prostitute, but Jesus also came for tax cheats, murderers and liars.
God wants to take us as Rahabs and do a rehab work in us. This former prostitute married a Jewish man and eventually became the great-grandmother of King David and an ancestor of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. What an incredible transformation! The same is in store for you and me. We come to God with our nasty labels, and God offers to transform us and put our life in a place we never thought we’d be.
Maybe you see yourself today as a Rahab, a dirty sinner outside of God’s family with little hope for redemption. But when you turn to Jesus in faith, God sees you differently.
He sees you as a rehab. A beautiful, glorious rehab.