Good Morning Friends,
“The wicked will not inherit the kingdom of
God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor
adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the
greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of
God. That is what some of you were. You were washed, you were sanctified, you
were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our
God.” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11)
I don’t know what kind of past all of you have,
but there aren’t very many of us who don’t have some sordid stories to tell
about the things we’ve done. You can charge some of it off to youthful
passions. You can charge some of it off to immature foolishness. You still have
to charge all of it to human sinfulness -- our sinfulness. None of us can say
that we have escaped it. No one does!
That’s the way God found us -- sinful, broken,
guilty. What we deserved was punishment and death. What we got was grace and
mercy and salvation! He took the guilt of our sin and put it on the account of
Jesus. He took the righteousness of His perfect Son, Jesus, and put it on our
account! What a deal! What love! What grace! Everyone of us who has come to
Christ has experienced it. All of us came from the same place and came in the
same way -- from sin to God by grace.
Though God found us in the guilt of our sin, He
is not content to leave us there. All who come to Christ have been implanted
with the Holy Spirit. One of the Holy Spirit’s works is transformation. Everyone
who comes to Christ gets transformed. Not overnight. Not without a great deal of
pain and discomfort. Not completely in this world. But transformation does
happen, just look back at your life and you can see it.
God will take you just like you are – it’s the
only way you can come to Him. But He won’t leave you that way! That’s His
promise!
His, by Grace, Steve
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