Seeking and saving the lost
by Norma Koehne
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‘What are you waiting for? Get up, be baptised and wash your sins away’ (Acts 22:16).
Read Acts 22:1–21 (and Jonah 3:1–10)
These two stories clearly show the love of God and his persistence in bringing people to repentance and faith. Jonah, rather reluctantly, preached repentance to the people of the great city of Nineveh, and through the power of the Holy Spirit, the king and the people turned from their sins and ‘believed God’. We see God’s patience in the history of the people of Israel, as this nation blessed by God continually turned away from him, and he sent prophets to bring them to repentance and back to faith.
Then we have that amazing story of God directly intervening in the life of Saul miraculously, turning him from a destroyer of ‘The Way’ to a bold preacher of the good news of Christ. How was he changed? We see this in the words of Ananias, ‘What are you waiting for? Get up, be baptised and wash away your sins’. We can never forget the power of our baptism in our lives as it turned us from enemies of God to his beloved children.
There are so many Bible verses that talk about God’s love and joy over sinners who repent. First of all, his love: ‘While we were still sinners Christ died for us’ (Romans 5:8). Then Jesus tells us, ‘there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who do not need to repent’ (Luke 15:7). God’s desire is not for just a few to know the joy of his love, but ‘God our Saviour … will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth’ (1 Timothy 2:4).
We are privileged to be God’s voice to bring people to repentance and back to the love of God. I am sure we all have those among our family and friends who have turned away from God. How can we be silent when we know that God grieves over them and yearns to have them reconciled and restored? I love the story of Abraham pleading for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. We need to plead no less persistently for those who have turned away from God.
Loving Father, thank you that you have saved me and forgiven me. Help me, through loving words and actions, to reveal this love to those around me. Amen.
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