Transformed!

Christ did not send me to baptise. He sent me to tell the Good News, and to tell it without using the language of human wisdom, in order to make sure that Christ’s death on the cross is not robbed of its power.
For the message about Christ’s death on the cross is nonsense to those who are being lost; but for us who are being saved it is God’s power.     (verses 17,18)

Read 1 Corinthians 1:1-19

In South Korea at the end of World War II, a band of communist raiders from the North took over a town and left it in chaos. During that time the two sons of a Presbyterian pastor were beaten up and killed. Later, when order was restored and the murderers brought to trial, the sister of the dead boys made an amazing request. Her father, she said, ‘wished to plead for clemency for his sons’ killers. Not only that, he asked for their release in order to adopt them as his sons. An astonished court ordered the release of one of the prisoners to the pastor’s care, and the young man became a member of the pastor’s family. Two years later this same young man began studies at the Bible Institute of Korea.

How could this pastor and bereaved father show such forgiveness and love in the face of such evil? The answer lies in Paul’s words about the power of Christ’s death on the cross. It was this power which brought about the transformation of a young killer’s life. It is the same power that transformed your life on the day you were baptised. You were taken from death row and adopted into the family of the Lord God of heaven and earth. It is not just Good News – it is the Greatest News!

Lord, may your power in my transformed life bring comfort to the sorrowful and hope to the hopeless. Amen.

by Margaret Hunt, in ‘New Strength for each Day’ (LCA, Openbook,1998)

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