There was once a president over a fairly large nation. He had many admirers, but at the same time he had many antagonists in his presence. Often people berated him, accusing him of various injustices because actions committed by the president hurt these people. Even still, this president loved his people. He would do anything to remain in seat of command.
One day news spread throughout the nation about this band of ragamuffins who were nomadic. Often they lived in the president's nation, often they moved north or south to find better sources of food or shelter. These people were poor. They lacked the money to buy any variety of food, so any question of new clothes or soap with water was out of the equation.
Local law enforcement saw these people as an eyesore. They felt the economy failed wherever the nomads were for people refused to eat in any restaurant that reeked of them; people hated to enter the same store they were in, and people dared not walk down the same street lest they contract some unknown disease or brush against their grime. Therefore, the local law enforcement sent their arms to capture every nomad and lock them up in prison. Shackles and everything.
Days passed, nights crept; and the people found a way to survive the horrible conditions of the jail. They had no other option than to live and sleep in their own filth. Food was scarce, and people began to die. However no body delivered the unfortunate lost souls out of the prison for proper burial or cremation, rather they were left alone with their surviving friends and family.
As months passed, the disgust of the nomads' prison was unimaginable. However, as issues were left untouched over the weeks, people soon forgot anything ever happened. Businesses were cranking out economic figures and people were happy. Everyone forgot about the enslaved nomads. Everyone but the few jailers who kicked food into the dreary hallways. Everyone but the few souls who linger around the jails seeking some new adventurous excursion to release boredom.
These adventurers soon discovered these nomads through a small window carved out of the stony wall. At first they thought it was like an open sepulcher, but as they drew nigh they heard moans. Naturally they assumed ghosts and were interested, but their excitement was all but shattered when they realized the moans came from living--though barely--souls deep in the prison of the nation. The adventurers saw the shackles. They saw the pain; the filth; the dead; the dying.
The adventurers pulled away from the prison window aghast and appalled. Surely this was disgustingly overlooked and no one actually allowed this atrocity to persist. They rushed to the guards and exclaimed how there was moaning and crying out from the lower level of the prison. However, the jailers simply shrugged it off as another feeding time and went with their buckets of slosh to feed the enslaved souls.
Such apathy to the horror shocked these young men who looked for answers within themselves. Finally, they turned and ran to the president's capitol building and sought aid from him who loved all.
They fell down before his feet, panting at the many mile run. Unable to look at his face, they poured out their spirits to his feet, crying out with a gnawing pang in their hearts. They clenched their fists, pounding the ground with defeated dismay.
The president knelt down by them and brushed tears from their eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. He anguished with them, for he knew already of the disaster in the jailhouse. He, however, spent months planning some sort of rescue attempt, but he was left with only one option: To go down there himself and pull them out of the grimy hole in the ground they were living in. The adventurers cautioned against the proposition, but the president bowed his head longingly, lovingly. He was the only one who had enough love to actually touch them, to rescue them.
Thus the president left his capitol building. He sprinted down the road to where the jailhouse stood against the shallow light of the rising sun. He pushed past the guards who tried to keep him away from the cellar, but they eventually grasped their position in light of the intruder and backed away. The president pressed on down the cold stairs, lights flickering with every breath of wind that whispered through the hallways--wind, mind you, that reeked of the nomads. The president suppressed his instinctive gagging and continued down the hall to the increasingly growing moans. He reached the large locked cell where the nomads were kept. They aroma hit him harder as he unlocked the cell. His feet slipped into muck. He took a few steps tripped over the chains of a deceased nomad and fell face-first into thick mire. He pushed himself up to his feet, dripping from the sludge. Again the aroma wrenched at his gut, but he successfully held himself complete.
The nomads looked at the dreary figured stumbling before them and wondered who the new prisoner was for only a moment before they caught a fluttering glimpse of their president. They cried out in sorrow for him to abandon them in their sludge-filled abode so that he would not contract a disease he would regret. The president gave them no regard for their outbursts and fell down at the socket of their chains and hoisted a large stone and shattered the bonds. He ushered them out the door, nudging them with his shoulders. He took the hands of those surrounding him and led them up the steps, out the jailhouse, and into the splintering light of sunrise.
The president led them to the river, fresh with rushing waters. He stepped in and his legs were washed of the grime, filth, and muck. He plunged deeper and his clean face was seen again to be recognized. He held out his arm for the first person to be washed by the waters and led her to be plunged beneath the swells of the river. As the frail woman surfaced, the beautiful, radiant glow of her skin and face shone in deep contrast to the refuse floating away down the river.
People rushed into the water to be cleansed of their slime and dirt and sorrow. The first woman danced upon the bank, trilling songs of jubilation. She twirled and jumped and clapped, joined by those stumbling onto the bank with cleansed bodies. As she danced more, her outpouring joy turned to instant confusion and slight sorrow when she spotted a handful of nomads still standing in their filth. She urged them to be washed by the president, yet they refused. To portray these souls as ungrateful to their rescue from the jail would be a false representation--for they, too, sang the songs of rescue and jubilee. They simply would not enter the river.
This trouble the woman greatly. He joy turned to mourning and sorrow as she reminded them of how the president entered their prison and experienced their grime and was plunged into their filth. Her heart ached with the president who was still holding his arm out to plunge them into the rushing, cleansing waters. His heart could not fathom why they would choose to remain in their grime and not be washed clean.
~~~~
So is the story with many Christians. They have been rescued from their bondage, from their chains of sin--yet they do not plunge into the cleansing waters of the Spirit to be renewed. They still drip of the grime of their habitual sins. They still sing and worship in their stained clothes and bodies. They still choose to return to their familiar sins.
It's a crazy thought. A ridiculous thought.
God shows his love for us in the while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom. 5:8)
While we were still sitting in our own filth and grime, Christ came to us, wrapped his arms around us, and lead us to redemption. Why, then, should we continue in sin? "How can we who died to sin still live in it?" (Rom. 6:2)
"Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness." (Rom. 6:13)
One day news spread throughout the nation about this band of ragamuffins who were nomadic. Often they lived in the president's nation, often they moved north or south to find better sources of food or shelter. These people were poor. They lacked the money to buy any variety of food, so any question of new clothes or soap with water was out of the equation.
Local law enforcement saw these people as an eyesore. They felt the economy failed wherever the nomads were for people refused to eat in any restaurant that reeked of them; people hated to enter the same store they were in, and people dared not walk down the same street lest they contract some unknown disease or brush against their grime. Therefore, the local law enforcement sent their arms to capture every nomad and lock them up in prison. Shackles and everything.
Days passed, nights crept; and the people found a way to survive the horrible conditions of the jail. They had no other option than to live and sleep in their own filth. Food was scarce, and people began to die. However no body delivered the unfortunate lost souls out of the prison for proper burial or cremation, rather they were left alone with their surviving friends and family.
As months passed, the disgust of the nomads' prison was unimaginable. However, as issues were left untouched over the weeks, people soon forgot anything ever happened. Businesses were cranking out economic figures and people were happy. Everyone forgot about the enslaved nomads. Everyone but the few jailers who kicked food into the dreary hallways. Everyone but the few souls who linger around the jails seeking some new adventurous excursion to release boredom.
These adventurers soon discovered these nomads through a small window carved out of the stony wall. At first they thought it was like an open sepulcher, but as they drew nigh they heard moans. Naturally they assumed ghosts and were interested, but their excitement was all but shattered when they realized the moans came from living--though barely--souls deep in the prison of the nation. The adventurers saw the shackles. They saw the pain; the filth; the dead; the dying.
The adventurers pulled away from the prison window aghast and appalled. Surely this was disgustingly overlooked and no one actually allowed this atrocity to persist. They rushed to the guards and exclaimed how there was moaning and crying out from the lower level of the prison. However, the jailers simply shrugged it off as another feeding time and went with their buckets of slosh to feed the enslaved souls.
Such apathy to the horror shocked these young men who looked for answers within themselves. Finally, they turned and ran to the president's capitol building and sought aid from him who loved all.
They fell down before his feet, panting at the many mile run. Unable to look at his face, they poured out their spirits to his feet, crying out with a gnawing pang in their hearts. They clenched their fists, pounding the ground with defeated dismay.
The president knelt down by them and brushed tears from their eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. He anguished with them, for he knew already of the disaster in the jailhouse. He, however, spent months planning some sort of rescue attempt, but he was left with only one option: To go down there himself and pull them out of the grimy hole in the ground they were living in. The adventurers cautioned against the proposition, but the president bowed his head longingly, lovingly. He was the only one who had enough love to actually touch them, to rescue them.
Thus the president left his capitol building. He sprinted down the road to where the jailhouse stood against the shallow light of the rising sun. He pushed past the guards who tried to keep him away from the cellar, but they eventually grasped their position in light of the intruder and backed away. The president pressed on down the cold stairs, lights flickering with every breath of wind that whispered through the hallways--wind, mind you, that reeked of the nomads. The president suppressed his instinctive gagging and continued down the hall to the increasingly growing moans. He reached the large locked cell where the nomads were kept. They aroma hit him harder as he unlocked the cell. His feet slipped into muck. He took a few steps tripped over the chains of a deceased nomad and fell face-first into thick mire. He pushed himself up to his feet, dripping from the sludge. Again the aroma wrenched at his gut, but he successfully held himself complete.
The nomads looked at the dreary figured stumbling before them and wondered who the new prisoner was for only a moment before they caught a fluttering glimpse of their president. They cried out in sorrow for him to abandon them in their sludge-filled abode so that he would not contract a disease he would regret. The president gave them no regard for their outbursts and fell down at the socket of their chains and hoisted a large stone and shattered the bonds. He ushered them out the door, nudging them with his shoulders. He took the hands of those surrounding him and led them up the steps, out the jailhouse, and into the splintering light of sunrise.
The president led them to the river, fresh with rushing waters. He stepped in and his legs were washed of the grime, filth, and muck. He plunged deeper and his clean face was seen again to be recognized. He held out his arm for the first person to be washed by the waters and led her to be plunged beneath the swells of the river. As the frail woman surfaced, the beautiful, radiant glow of her skin and face shone in deep contrast to the refuse floating away down the river.
People rushed into the water to be cleansed of their slime and dirt and sorrow. The first woman danced upon the bank, trilling songs of jubilation. She twirled and jumped and clapped, joined by those stumbling onto the bank with cleansed bodies. As she danced more, her outpouring joy turned to instant confusion and slight sorrow when she spotted a handful of nomads still standing in their filth. She urged them to be washed by the president, yet they refused. To portray these souls as ungrateful to their rescue from the jail would be a false representation--for they, too, sang the songs of rescue and jubilee. They simply would not enter the river.
This trouble the woman greatly. He joy turned to mourning and sorrow as she reminded them of how the president entered their prison and experienced their grime and was plunged into their filth. Her heart ached with the president who was still holding his arm out to plunge them into the rushing, cleansing waters. His heart could not fathom why they would choose to remain in their grime and not be washed clean.
~~~~
So is the story with many Christians. They have been rescued from their bondage, from their chains of sin--yet they do not plunge into the cleansing waters of the Spirit to be renewed. They still drip of the grime of their habitual sins. They still sing and worship in their stained clothes and bodies. They still choose to return to their familiar sins.
It's a crazy thought. A ridiculous thought.
God shows his love for us in the while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom. 5:8)
While we were still sitting in our own filth and grime, Christ came to us, wrapped his arms around us, and lead us to redemption. Why, then, should we continue in sin? "How can we who died to sin still live in it?" (Rom. 6:2)
"Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness." (Rom. 6:13)
