Please imagine for a moment the following scenario. You’ve been shopping at your local supermarket. You hop into your car and reverse out of your parking spot – but you fail to see the other car about to enter the vacant parking spot next to you. There’s an awful crunching sound and in shock you hit the brakes. You look around and you notice the other driver is getting out of his car and making his way towards you. He’s a big brawny bruiser of a bloke and you say to yourself, “Uh oh, I think I’m in trouble!” Now at that point would it be helpful for you to know that Mr Muscles, who’s approaching your car, has just come from a brothel or has just come from a church prayer meeting?
You can call me prejudiced if you like but in my humble opinion I think I’m less likely to get my lights punched out by a guy who has just come from a church prayer meeting than by one who has just come from a brothel. The point I’m making is that being a Christian makes a difference in someone’s life. Okay, granted. Christians are far from perfect… but they are forgiven… and they do try to live by God’s commandment to love their neighbour as themselves.
I could give you many examples of how Christianity changed someone’s life. I’d begin with the apostle Paul in the book of Acts. Here was a man who had approved, if not supervised, the stoning of Stephen, the first Christian martyr. But Jesus appears to Paul of the Road to Damascus where he’s headed to imprison and kill Christians. The difference that Jesus makes in his life is that Saul the persecutor becomes Paul the missionary. I could tell you about John Newton, the slave trader. God touches his life and he becomes a preacher who writes the hymn Amazing Grace. Or from more modern times there’s the wonderful story of Chuck Colson. Colson was called the hatchet man who did the dirty work for US President Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal. But in jail he came to hear the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection. That dramatically changed his life. Colson is now known not only for his involvement in the Watergate affair but more particularly for his work in founding the worldwide Prison Fellowship ministry.
The apostle Paul once wrote to some Christians in Corinth and described this change in quite a graphic way. Paul said, “If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come.” He adds that this doesn’t happen because of some sort of self-help program but that it is God’s doing.
This past week I spoke to some people about the work that Crossroads does in teaching the Bible to prisoners. A friend of mine had attended a chapel service in a jail and found himself sitting next to an older man. Later the prison chaplain said to him, “That man you were sitting next to was quite a hardened criminal. He’s in for armed robbery and has spent almost thirty of his fifty years in jail. God touched his life through the Crossroads Bible lessons. Let me tell you how that changed him. After he became a Christian he phoned his lawyer telling him he wanted to confess to the police certain unsolved holdups for which he was responsible. His lawyer told him he had rocks in his head and ended up hanging up the phone on him. He then rang the local police himself and asked them to send someone around to take a statement. The upshot was that he had a number of months added to his sentence.” The prison chaplain later asked the man how he felt about having his sentence increased. His reply was that it felt wonderful and that at last he could sleep at night with a clear conscience.
So, back to my imaginary supermarket carpark scene! I suspect that when I saw Mr Muscles getting out of his car I’d be praying that he had just come from a church prayer meeting and not from a brothel.
John Westendorp