He Doesn't Throw Stones
As Stephen and Emily Foreman wrestled with this call in their life to go overseas and share the love of Jesus with Muslim people, Emily started to feel that her past might disqualify her for this.
As a young woman, she'd fallen pregnant before she'd gotten married, and her husband Steven was a divorced man, and she wondered if God could use them to do the good work that He'd promised to do through them.
When Your Past Feels Like a Barrier
But then she says this on page 4: “God was not troubled by our past. He kept bringing to my mind the adulterous woman in the Bible, waiting for Jesus' response as the crowd hovered over her with stones. As Jesus stooped down, He didn't reach for a stone, but began to write in the dirt. Then she says, for Steven and me, the ground was our hearts, and Jesus was beginning, or continuing rather, to write His story. Not a story of condemnation, but a story of redemption.”
A Story of Redemption, Not Condemnation
She realised that even though she'd had a sinful past, she'd come to believe in Jesus. His grace had been poured out into her life, and instead of holding their sins against them, Jesus had freed them from the guilt of their sins, set them free to do good work.
God Still Has a Purpose for You
And so I wonder if you are looking at your life saying, I can't be a Christian, I can't do good work for God because of what I've done in the past. Please know today that God does not hold your past against you.
If you come to Him in faith and ask for forgiveness, it is yours freely. If you've drifted from Him, you can come back and find His love given to you freely. He does have a plan for you. He does have great work for you to do in His name.
And so please don't let your past drag you down because Jesus isn't wanting to throw stones at you because of your sins. He's wanting to redeem you and give you a great new purpose in life, to share His love in everything you do.
The students at Oswald and Biddy's Bible Training College learned to make themselves available for God's purposes wherever He might send them. Let’s do the same!