Living Again
Lopez Lomong's autobiography Running For My Life is a beautiful read, I hope these two weeks of devotions based on his story have inspired you and that you'll buy and read his book.
Let me close with a powerful picture from the back end of his book. Lomong has now become quite famous after his success running for the USA, and he ends up going back to South Sudan and reuniting with his family in a most touching moment.
Standing at His Own Grave: Lopez Lomong's Homecoming
His parents, who thought he had been killed as a boy when the soldiers kidnapped him, were understandably overcome with emotion on his return. In a very moving event, they take him outside of the small village from which he'd been taken, and into a small fenced-off area, where he finds a little pile of rocks in a far corner. This was his grave, where his parents had buried what they had of his and mourned for him for many days, all those years before.
Lomong's father turned to the crowd that had followed them there, and exclaimed with joy that the son who he thought was dead came back to life!
I thought this was a profound metaphor for the Christian life. You see friends, the Christian message is that each of us humans has a sinful nature, and we end up choosing a spiritual death when we sin against God. But like Lomong, we can return home and our Father can declare us resurrected from the dead - this is what salvation through Christ is!
Only the Blood of Christ Can Bring Us Back to Life
But the key here is that only Christ can do this for us. In fact in the book, the people of this small village bring a bull to the grave, and kill it there, and smear Lomong with the blood. This was their culture's tradition, I suppose, in cases like this. But I was immediately reminded of these words of the book of Hebrews: "The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!" (Hebrews 9:13-14)
We all need to come back to life, through the blood of Christ the Lamb of God, not the blood of any old animal. Then we will be cleansed and enabled to serve God!
Lomong's "resurrection" wasn't real - he'd never been dead in the first place, just lost. But the Bible paints a picture of each person being dead in their sins, and needing the blood of Christ to resurrect them to spiritual life.
Have you done this? Have you come to Christ, and trusted in Him as your Saviour and Redeemer? Have you received new life from Him, and walked out of your grave of sin into a new life of faith?
If so, celebrate today with gratitude what He has done for you. And please share a comment below giving God the praise for doing this.
If not, don't delay. Do it now! Turn from your life of sin, trust in Jesus as your Saviour, your Lord, your everything, and come back to life in His name!
Lopez Lomong once stood at his own grave and heard his father declare him alive again - a picture of the resurrection every believer receives through Christ's blood. Have you received that new life, or is today the day to come back from spiritual death?