Listen to these words spoken by Jesus…and please read them slowly…

“For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world…but that the world through Him might be saved…” Then, He goes on to clarify that ‘those who do not believe in Him…are already condemned.’ (John 3:17-18)

We then read in Luke’s gospel where Jesus was reminding His followers…”The Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.” (9:56)

When Jesus first arrived on the scene, it became apparent to many that He was the ‘One’ whom the prophets of old had foretold of His coming…the ‘Dayspring from on high who visited us…to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:78-79). Would you please underline that part in your Bible that says: ‘to guide our feet in the way of peace’.

Matthew’s gospel cites the writings of Isaiah, commenting on how “the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light…and how the ‘light has dawned’. (Matt. 4:16). That’s when we are told: “From that time…Jesus began to preach and to say, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (4:17)

His invitation to us has always without condemnation, as He extends a hand of mercy to anyone who had ‘ears to hear’…”Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest….learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls…” (Matt. 11:28-29).

Do you recall His proclamation when He first returned home after his time of testing in the wilderness, and he stood up in the synagogue and read from the scrolls of Isaiah, announcing how ‘The Spirit of the Lord was upon Him…having been sent to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind…and to set at liberty those who are oppressed…” (Luke 4:17-19).

It wasn’t those who were ‘physically blind’ that He was sent to ‘heal’ (even though He did perform multiple healings on those who were physically blind). It was all of us who had been ‘blinded by the god of this age’, that Paul writes about in 2 Cor. 4:3-4. Paul knew full well what the power of this gospel was equipped to do (Rom. 1:16), recalling the very words spoken to him by Jesus who sent him to preach to the Gentiles…

“to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.” (Acts 26:18)

But make no mistake about it…whether it was the religious leaders of the day, or a weary Samaritan woman who clearly had a string of bad luck when it came to staying married (John 4); or a man He healed from an ailment that robbed 38 years of his life…to a disgraced woman drug from her bed of adultery to be stoned…(John 5,8)…Jesus still confronted them with their sin. And He will with us ...as well. There is no getting around it, no use in denying it nor downplaying it. Sin is the very thing that has always kept men captive and separated us from our Creator. And it was sin that Jesus came to set us free from…so we could truly ‘go and sin no more’. (John 8:32-36).

Not surprisingly…folks would often respond in various ways when it came to ‘fessing up’. It was usually the ‘religious folks’ that went into denial mode (John 8:33) and took offense to His words. Others…were simply broken before Him, even washing His feet with their tears...which placed them as immediate candidates to be forgiven and/or pardoned ...by His love and mercy (Luke 7:36-50).  But let me be clear here: God does not want us to simply 'acknowledge' our sins, as if a head nod and a wink satisfies Him showing we know we are 'messed up'; He demands that we turn from our sins...once and for all.

Sin was, and continues to be… the sickness that opens the door for a spiritual enemy, the devil…to come into our lives, and to oppress us... as his main objective is to ‘steal, kill, and destroy’. And Jesus continues to be the ‘cure’, healing all who are oppressed by the devil, which includes setting us free. (John 10:10; Acts 10:38)

And to whomever the ‘Son sets free…they shall be free indeed’ (John 8:36). But if you have been told that you will always remain a ‘wretched sinner’…(saved by grace)…then you are being fed a lie from the pit of hell, possibly through a ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’…or even and ‘angel of light’ (2 Cor. 11:14; Matt. 7:15).

So when Jesus makes it clear that He did not come to condemn us because we were already condemned…and that He in fact came to ‘save’ us…let me again use an illustration I have shared here multiple times before. Think of this world as the ‘Titanic’, the doomed ocean liner that struck an iceberg and sank in the dark and icy cold waters of the northern Atlantic ocean many years ago. The people who were ‘saved’ were the ones who boarded the lifeboats, leaving everything else behind. There was no bringing their luggage and prized possessions with them onto the rescue crafts. And the truth of the matter in that dire situation was this: You could have been a passenger with a ‘guaranteed’ first class ticket that ensured your safe passage to America aboard the Titanic; but when reality set in…there was only one way to be ‘saved’, and that was to get in the lifeboats.

Friends…too many people today are overly concerned with trying to preserve/save their ‘way of life’ here. It’s time to make sure we are ‘in the Ark’, or ‘in Christ’. And having a regular spot on a church pew is not the 'fruit' of 'being in Christ'.  Jesus IS…the ‘lifeboat’, and of this you can be sure…you are gonna have to leave all the ‘excess baggage’ (sin) behind. Without ‘holiness’…no one will enter in and ‘see the Lord’ (Heb. 12:14). Again, I point you to the story of the rich young ruler in Matt. 19. He was told up front…what was expected…and required to ‘enter in’; and he chose to go his own way. He would not be the only one to make that choice either (John 6:66).

But what will be your choice? What are you holding onto that seems so precious to you now, and impossible to let go of, today? Why not finish up reading Psalm 24:3,4, and James 4:7-10…and let those words sink deep into your own heart, remembering, it is the ‘kindness and goodness of God…who leads us to repentance. (Rom. 2:4) And please know: it is not…the will of God for any…to suffer…but for us all to come to repentance’. (2 Pet. 3:9)