A Happy Healthy Church: Devotions From Time of Grace MinistrySample

OUTREACH: REMOVING THE CURSE

In one of the local hospitals here in Milwaukee, the top floor is where fetal alcohol babies go. The problem with those babies is they inherited something that was not originally their personal choice. They inherited an alcohol dependency from their mothers who drank, and their lives will never be normal as a result.

Well, I've got news for you. You and I are "fetal sin" babies. We can whine about it, tap dance around it, make excuses for it, or think about something else as a distraction, but we cannot get rid of our congenital evil virus. We all come from the same set of first parents, who in the Garden of Eden thought that being connected to God was demeaning slavery. Now we all live under God's triple curse of pain, death, and judgment.

Astoundingly, the same God who condemned their rebellion also designed a rescue plan. The prophet Isaiah explained the great messianic plan more clearly than anyone in the Old Testament: "He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed" (Isaiah 53:5).

It is this message of love and forgiveness that a dying world needs and that your congregation can bring to your community.