1 Peter 3:18

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit ~ 1 Peter 3:18


The reality of this verse was the inspiration for John Newton, a past slave ship trader, to write the hymn, “Amazing Grace”. “How sweet the sound,” Newton wrote, “to save a wretch like me.”  It is by His amazing grace that Jesus died for you and for me. What God would do that, to give up himself for a sinner, a backslider, a lost soul, and offer redemption, freely, regardless of the sins that one had committed? None other than the God of Jesus Christ! It is the promise of a delivered soul, freed from despair. Newton wrote the words to his hymn from his own personal experience. It is a song which holds our attention, for it is more than likely your song too. You nor I may have had his life experience of being a slave trader, but what sins separated us from Jesus before we recognized His mercy and grace? It was a storm in the Atlantic which caused a frightened Newton to call out for mercy! And he received it immediately! What is your story? How was your spirit made alive in Christ? He suffered for you, He suffered for Newton, He suffered for every man, woman and child so that a new life would be made manifest in all. The “righteous suffered for the unrighteous”… “for God so loved the world that He sent His only Son so that whoever believed in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Hallelujah and Amen!!

Pastor Julia

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