Set Me Free!

About a year ago, Jordan and I had the honor of being invited to a bush church that was the home church of one of friend of ours who works in maintenance.  Jordan was asked to preach and decided to go with a sermon about Zacchaeus.  I feel ashamed now, but at the time I thought that it was a silly childish sermon topic...more like a story you would tell in Sunday School, not as a sermon.  The theme of the message was about how Zacchaeus was a tax collector, a sinner, and generally viewed as a very bad person by most people, and yet Jesus was willing to go to his house and offer him salvation.  At the end of the story, Luke 19: 10 says "For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost." 

After the message, the pastor offered a time for people to come to the front and share.  Several people stood up and talked about how they felt God convicting them to go out and share with those people they may have avoided before, the "Zacchaeuses" of their village.  

THEN a much older lady stood up and walked to the front.  She spoke in her tribal language so the lady next to me had to translate...and immediately what she was saying caught my attention.  Apparently, this lady had been involved in "witchcraft" in her village for many many years.  Her specialty was performing abortions for girls in the village.  

In the last few years, she realized how wrong the things she had been involved in really were.  She had spent so many years in bondage and darkness and now all she wanted was to be set free!!  When we got there that Sunday, she had been going to church for a few months, searching for the answer.  She heard about Jesus, how much He loved her, and the forgiveness that He offered her BUT she also assumed that the things she had done and the places she had been were just too horrible.  Jesus could never love someone as wretched as her...UNTIL the day the Lord gave Jordan His message about Zacchaeus to share with this little bush church.  Somehow, while Jordan was sharing about Jesus coming to SEEK and SAVE the LOST, God wrapped His arms around this lady and convinced her that His SON had come to die for HER sins!  That He alone was enough to set her free!  On that day, she gave her life to the Lord!

and THAT is why we're here!  Because of God's amazing saving grace!  

"Do you want to be free?

Lift your chains,

I hold the key!

All power in Heaven and Earth belong to Me!"

-Casting Crowns

Recently, we went back to this church and were blessed to see this lady again and to witness the joy that shines from her now!