There but for the Grace of God...

I know a gentleman who was once in jail. He was once a criminal and had lead a very hard life. In prison he met Jesus and accepted him as his Lord and savior. He became a changed man. He is filled with a passion and a fire for God that I have rarely seen. My brother seemed to think that this man and others like him had such fire because they felt they had a greater debt to pay or their deliverance was so dramatic that it gave them a special testimony. My brother reminded me that it is said that "those who are forgiven much, love much." I can't find fault in that at all and I believe it to be true. It is truly amazing when a man who has lived such a hard life comes to experience the love of Christ.

But I look at the Church and I look at myself and I see a lot people who have been in church for years and have not been such great sinners. We have not seen such dramatic deliverance and we end up talking about everything under the sun except Christ. We have no fire, no zeal. And to honest it doesn't make sense why we don't have that same fire and zeal as the gentleman I spoke of earlier. Our pitiful little sins were sending us to the same hell he was bound for when we met Jesus. Our petty crimes had convicted us to be punished just as much as his great crimes. Our deliverance may not have been as dramatic but the results were the same...we were saved from eternal damnation and hellfire just as he was. Where is our fire?

We are the vilest of sinners no matter how great our sin is before we meet Jesus. We are just as horrid in the eyes of God as the biggest murderer until we accept Christ. Once we really get that into our heart we can begin to understand that our deliverance is just as great. If we don't feel that fire or zeal...maybe we don't realize exactly what God has done for us?