A Foreign Object

Scriptures: “remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in His flesh the law of its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in Himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which He put to death their hostility” (Ephesians 2:12-16)

Last Friday night, my son and I spend the night in the urgent care because he carelessly got a splinter underneath his nail. It caused great pains and I had to take him to see a doctor. Having seen the situation, the doctor gave him two choices: 1) since the splinter was in between his finger and his nail, the doctor said he could give it some time and, with the growth of nail, the splinter would come out someday, and 2) the doctor could perform a small surgery to cut the nail open and retrieve the splinter right away.

Having suffered from the splinter all night, my son went for the second option. So the doctor gave him some anesthetics on his finger and, as he explained earlier, cut open his nail and pulled out the splinter. Then the doctor prescribed an antibiotics for him. On the way to the pharmacy, I commended my son for his courage and toughness dealing with the “operation.” He responded, “I guess our body simply does not tolerate foreign objects.” To which I said, “The design of God is amazing. It seems like our body knows exactly what belongs there and what not.” Then, my son said, “I guess this is true spiritually, too.”

For a moment, I was silent, thinking about what he just said. I think he was right! Somehow, deep down in our heart, we knew we were not right with God. There was something inserted in between God and us, something that brought misery into our lives, something that broke the fellowship we could have with God, and that something is what the bible calls sin. Prophet Isaiah said, “Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor His ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.” (Isaiah 59:1-2)

Unfortunately, unlike the splinter my son had, sin would not and will not come out on its own. It would stay there and continued to corrupt us, even when we don’t realize the presence of sins in our lives. At that point, we become the dead-end to ourselves, hopeless for eternity and ignorant of the need for redemption.

This sin issue is present and prevalent in every human culture. Throughout human history, we have tried every means we knew to solve this problem. All the religious teachings on doing good work for redemption is a living proof of human efforts to address this sin issue. But, to no avail, human condition continued to worsen without hope until God Himself came to deliver us and took upon Himself all our sins so we could be given a brand new start. Such was the salvation accomplished by our Lord Jesus on the Mount of Calvary.

Apart from being thankful for the grace of salvation provided for us, we need to remember redemption was prepared because, in God’s view, there’s a need to address and to get rid of this sin issue. As children of God, we want to live a life pleasing to Him. To do so, we need to stay away from all unholy deeds and words and be attentive to where the Holy Spirit is guiding us. God is more than gracious enough to bless each of us, His beloved children, with the indwelling of His Spirit. It is our initiative to respond to His leading. He has promised, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:1)

Praise God!

Prayer Requests:
For children suffering in urgent care facilities or emergency centers

Prayer:
Our gracious Father, thank You for exposing the sin reality to us and for becoming the solution for this very issue that we are unable to address. Please help us to be constantly attentive to the leading of the Holy Spirit who will not only help and usher us into the depth of Your riches, but also help transform us to be Your useful vessels to bring others in this crooked and depraved generation into Your grace of salvation for we pray in the precious and mighty name of our Lord Jesus, Amen!