If you were to think back on your life through the good times and the bad, we all have that one moment that is the worst moment of our lives. A moment where we made a terrible choice, were ruthlessly mean or extremely selfish. This is the moment you don’t want to talk about with anyone. If people only looked at us from that one moment, they would be shocked. They would judge you, stay away from you, and treat you differently because of it. Overcoming that reaction would be a very difficult task, no matter how good and respectable you were before or after, that one moment would define how people saw you if they only knew.
For many of the guys here at the Grants Pass Gospel Rescue Mission, they are on parole or probation for that worst moment in their lives. It is the thing they can’t escape or ignore, and it will start to become their identity. They begin to see themselves through that lens. They tell themselves, I am not a normal man, I am a felon, I am a sex offender, or I am a thief! They let the worst moment in their lives define them.
At the Gospel Rescue Mission, it is our challenge and privilege to teach these men and women that they can have a new identity in Jesus Christ. Jesus does not define them by their worst choices but loves them and values them as His very own son or daughter! When they truly grasp this and start to develop their relationship and identity in Christ it is a powerful thing.
2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here!”
It is amazing to see the “New Creations” that Jesus makes, when they identify as a child of God instead of their worst moment. The challenge for us (the Church) is to see them and value them the same way that Jesus does.
He died for me, He died for you, He died for them.
By: Bobby Galli, Men’s Coordinator