rl69
12-29-2016, 07:34 AM
He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.—Colossians 1:13 (http://harvest.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=4f108f827aed8d503b5fca9fa&id=9060ad94ab&e=3dd732485b)Our society doesn't really have answers for all the problems we are facing in our country today. Ironically, our society seems to do everything it can to undermine the only one who can help us, and that is Jesus Christ.
There are people caught in our legal system as repeat offenders. There are judges who make the wrong decisions. There is the breakdown of the family. And all of these elements combined produce a society that can do very little to change a person's heart, if anything at all.
Rehabilitation efforts largely fail. In fact, the only real programs that seem to produce lasting change are faith-based, and more specifically, are being operated by Christians who are calling people to faith in Jesus Christ. Society doesn't have the answers.
Jesus met two men whose lives had been controlled and ruined by Satan. Society didn't have the answers. Enter the Savior, Jesus. What did He do? He sought them out in their graveyard and offered them hope. In fact, Luke's account of the story tells us what happened to one of the men who was delivered: "Then they went out to see what had happened, and came to Jesus, and found the man from whom the demons had departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid" (Luke 8:35 (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/x-apple-data-detectors://4)).
Why were people afraid?
They didn't know what to make of it. He was so transformed it frightened the people. They couldn't even imagine a guy like him could be changed in such a dramatic way.
It is such a glorious thing when Christ so transforms someone that you can't even imagine that person being what he or she used to be. You realize that it is the power of a changed life. And that is what God can do.
There are people caught in our legal system as repeat offenders. There are judges who make the wrong decisions. There is the breakdown of the family. And all of these elements combined produce a society that can do very little to change a person's heart, if anything at all.
Rehabilitation efforts largely fail. In fact, the only real programs that seem to produce lasting change are faith-based, and more specifically, are being operated by Christians who are calling people to faith in Jesus Christ. Society doesn't have the answers.
Jesus met two men whose lives had been controlled and ruined by Satan. Society didn't have the answers. Enter the Savior, Jesus. What did He do? He sought them out in their graveyard and offered them hope. In fact, Luke's account of the story tells us what happened to one of the men who was delivered: "Then they went out to see what had happened, and came to Jesus, and found the man from whom the demons had departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid" (Luke 8:35 (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/x-apple-data-detectors://4)).
Why were people afraid?
They didn't know what to make of it. He was so transformed it frightened the people. They couldn't even imagine a guy like him could be changed in such a dramatic way.
It is such a glorious thing when Christ so transforms someone that you can't even imagine that person being what he or she used to be. You realize that it is the power of a changed life. And that is what God can do.