Found and Purged

July 27

“But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe. Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law. You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,” Galatians 3:22-26

Jesus Christ makes all the difference in the life of a man. As Paul declares here in his letter to the Galatians, “…the whole world is a prisoner of sin…” but the man who finds his Savior is set free from the prison of sin and death. The immutable law of God held him accountable for his transgression until the Lord set him free.

When a man places his life at the feet of Jesus and receives the washing of the blood that makes him clean, he is made new. As Isaiah 1:18 says, “Come, let us settle the matter. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be washed white as snow.” When a sinful man places his life under the cleansing flow of Calvary, he is forever transformed from sinner to saint.

Whether a drunken slave boat captain or a ruthless terrorist, the one who has been compelled by the entrance of the Holy Spirit into his heart to come to the foot of the cross will be renewed in the inner man, will be set free of the chains of sin in all its manifestations and be raised up to new life in Christ.

In the freedom a man receives from the Holy One, he is set free to glorify God with his life. John Newton, the slave boat captain who in the wretchedness of his sin was a heartless and ruthless abuser of his fellow man, upon his conversion to Christ became a minister of the gospel who reached out to other lost sinners with the knowledge of the Christ who brings the lost out of darkness into light—as Newton stated in his matchless hymn Amazing Grace, “I once was lost, but now I’m found…”

Walid Shoebat, a former terrorist, now extols the Christ he once disdained, rescues the persecuted Christians he once hated, supports the Jews he once wished to destroy. Like Newton before him, he can say, “I once was blind but now I see.” Only Christ can have such a transformative impact on a life. Only Jesus can cause a man to be “born again,” John 3:3, and remade—no longer in the image of the world and its sin but in the image of Jesus Himself.

The man without Christ—whether a tax cheat, an adulterer, a murderer, a terrorist—is a prisoner to the sin that binds him to the purposes of the evil one. If a man—no matter the depth of his sin—will receive the cleansing only Jesus can provide, he will be washed clean, he will be made new, he will emerge from darkness into light.

If the lost man will allow the Holy Spirit to stir within him, he can, like Newton and Shoebat, emerge from the lost-ness of sin to be found in Christ Jesus his Savior for evermore. May each man be found in the Savior and purged of all sin that he may become an eternal son of our eternal God.