Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, that person is a new creation: The old has gone, the new is here!
~ 2 Cor 5:17

Here are stories of four people in the Gospels who encountered grace: 

The Samaritan woman (John 4) had a thirsty soul. She had tried to quench her thirst by lifestyle choices that made her an outcast from the community and by the water from the town’s well. She had a knowledge of religion, but it wasn’t until Jesus crossed her path that she received living water. Her life was changed! Leaving her water pot, she rushed back to town to tell people about Jesus.  “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” (v 28).

Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10) lived a compromised life. He worked as a tax collector for the Romans, alienating himself from his fellow Jews. He was eager to see Jesus, but the only way for a short man to do that was to climb into a tree. Jesus saw him in the tree, called him down, and invited himself over to Zacchaeus’ house. Joyfully, After meeting Jesus, Zacchaeus joyfully gave half his possessions to the poor and promised that he would repay anyone he had cheated four times the amount. Jesus reminds us that he has come “to seek and save the lost.”

In Luke 15:11-32 we read of two brothers. The younger one wanted to do his own thing, so he asked for his share of the inheritance, then left home. He squandered his money and ended up feeding pigs. Starving, his hungry soul woke to memories of his father and hopes that he could sign on as a hired man for his dad. “But while he was still a long way off,” Luke tells us, “his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him” (v 20).

The older brother, the dutiful son, had never asked for his own share of the inheritance, nor squandered that inheritance, and  certainly had never fed unclean animals in a foreign land. He saw the fuss his father was making over his scoundrel brother and refused to show up for the party. So the father went to him. The self-righteous son reminded his dad of his steady, faithful life at home and that never was there a party for him.  “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found’” (Luke 15:31:32).

The heart of each of these people is revealed through their story. In these four we see brokenness, desperation, hunger and thirst (both literal and spiritual), pride, disillusionment, longing for more, hopelessness, anger… We see in them what we may see in ourselves and those around us. We see the human condition, which has been passed down to everyone since the Fall.

And in their stories we see their creator, our creator, who comes to them in love, meeting them where they are. He gives each person an opportunity to forsake their sin and come to the source of eternal life. He offers us life to the full (John 10:10). When we accept life in Christ we find that the old is gone, the new is here!

His work in us is ongoing. Even after years of walking with Jesus, he continues to show me areas of my life that he wants to transform. I can think of no better friend in life than Jesus—who made me, knows me, loves me, and wants the best for me.

I pray that you are experiencing the life of transformation. May 2021 be a year when Jesus leads you to new places with him.

“How reasonable it is to trust ourselves to the keeping of infinite love,
and infinite wisdom, and infinite power!”
~ Thomas Erkine, 1839
in a letter to his sister, Mrs. Paterson

Ginger