Dear Friends,
Twenty years ago, I was asked by a neighbor to help remove a dead raccoon from under her pool deck. Dead is probably the kindest way to describe the condition of the pile of decaying matter that had once been an animal. The stench from the maggot infested carcass which was wedged between a utility shed and the pool deck was all over the neighbor’s back yard and pool area. Clearly something had to be done pretty much immediately to alleviate the situation.
With a garden rake in hand, I squeezed my 200+ pound body into the small space far enough to pick up most of the body with the rake and brought it out where we doubled bagged it. After two buckets of bleach and hot water were poured into the ground where the raccoon had lain, the job was finished.
As we talked about how nasty it was to handle the dead animal long enough to dispose of it, the thought struck me that this was exactly how my sins seemed to God before Jesus came into my life in 1993. “But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6) And yet, God loved me so much that He took my sin, double bagged all of the filth of my life that had kept me separated from Him, (“As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.” Psalm 103:12); then washed the ground where it had lain with the blood of Jesus Christ. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)
There is someone reading this who needs to hear that no matter what lifestyle you may have pursued that has separated you from Him, no matter what you have done or thought about doing, God loves you so much that He is willing to forgive any sin! Not only forgive, but He will also forget forever the very thing that now seems to be dragging you down. “No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” (Jeremiah 31:34)
Where you will spend eternity hangs in the balance of your decision, and ultimately the decision is ours to make because we are creatures of free will. That decision, of course, is whether to trust Jesus Christ as your Savior and invite Him into your heart. If you have already made that decision, then this message needs to be shared with someone who hasn’t. We need to show the world that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” (Hebrews 13:87) and the signs that follow them that believe and are baptized have not changed!
In His Grip,
Will Dallas