The Promise Of New Life

Jesus [said], “Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.”

Luke 19:9-10

Jesus knew all about Zacchaeus, the little man who sat in a sycamore tree to see him better. Yet he offered him salvation and forgiveness. Although Zacchaeus was a son of Abraham by birth, his salvation didn’t come from his standing as an Israelite but from his connection with Christ. After that encounter, many were outraged that Jesus would visit the home of a sinner, but he responded that his mission and purpose were “to seek and save those who are lost.”

The man speaking to our leadership class as we were touring a prison wore gray clothes with “Department of Corrections” across the back of his shirt. He had been incarcerated most of his adult life, after first selling drugs early in life and a few years later being involved in a bar fight in which a man was killed. Although he was serving a life sentence, he had experienced the greatest miracle of all—salvation. In a Kairos spiritual retreat in the prison, the man had a life-changing encounter with Jesus, and he turned his life over to God. “I’ve never been happier in life because of the new beginning the Lord gave me. We’re all really broken people in here. But though I’m behind bars, I have peace for the first time in my life,” he said.

In discovering that God had purchased his freedom with Christ’s blood and had forgiven all his sins, this prisoner was set free. Now he spends his time teaching Bible studies and helping young guys who are newly behind bars know Christ.

Lord, your love and salvation know no barriers. And just like this prisoner and Zacchaeus, I, too, am a sinner in need of your grace. Thank you with all my heart that you came to seek and save those who are lost.

In new birth God does three impossible things: the first is to make a man’s past as though it had never been; the second, to make a man all over again, and the third, to make a man as certain of God as God is of himself.

Oswald Chambers(1874–1917), Scottish minister and teacher