Conversion Therapy of a Very Different Sort


Conversion Therapy of a Very Different Sort

How does change come?
Just how do the wicked truly repent?
Do you believe a criminal can become a lawful man?
Can a murderer receive a transplanted heart -
But not of human hands?

Jesus seemed to think so
As he told the thief on the cross
Truly, you will be with me in paradise
A deathbed conversion if ever I saw one

The sins of one flawed man are too many to enumerate
I speak from personal experience
But the sins of a flawed nation are so expansive
As to be almost infinite in scale

A nation of slavers for over 400 years – in varying degrees
We sold kidnapped children for less than the price of a proven mule
We tore mothers from their babies to wet-nurse our own desires
We hung black men from limbs of the live-oak tree
We left their bodies to hang and rot as if they were Spanish Moss

We bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham
We killed four black children attending Sunday School
And as they sang Jesus loves me – this I know
The KKK bombed them right into Jesus’ arms

John Newton was once a slave ship captain
But later he wrote the lyrics to Amazing Grace
Thomas Ryman was once a riverboat owner
He ran the largest saloon in Nashville at one time
And with the wealth built with guns, and girls and whiskey
He built the Union Gospel Tabernacle in 1892
He did this after hearing a revival preacher
That preacher’s name was Samuel Porter Jones
His message to us was “Quit your meanness”
And from that sermon – we have the Ryman Auditorium

For the word of God is alive and active
It is sharper than any two-edged sword
It cuts even to the division of soul and spirit
It judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart*

We must be careful in these days of dark opportunity
We must not snuff out the barely smoldering wick
Change rarely comes with angel’s singing
It is the slow and painful climb up from the miry pit

The Apostle Paul was once a murderer
King David was a philanderer
None of us is a good as God had hoped for us
Let’s remember, Jesus said:

Let him without sin cast the first stone
And no one did…

*Hebrews 4:12

dg

6/20/2020

 

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