In our secularized society I don’t hear much public or even private admission about people feeling burdened by their sin. But God’s Spirit is still very much in the business of working in people’s hearts and drawing them to salvation. So we can safely assume the Holy Spirit is convicting not a few people of sin, righteousness, and judgment (see John 16:18).
Perhaps you know of an individual who is under such conviction. Or maybe you are convicted and burdened about your own sin. The solution for addressing such a spiritual concern is pointed out in the following true story.
Amy Carmichael (1867-1951) was a Protestant Christian from Ireland who served faithfully as a missionary in India for fifty-six years. She and a group of fellow Christians once ministered in an Indian village where they met a young boy from a Hindu family.
Sometime earlier the boy had approached his own dad with a spiritual concern: “Father, I have a load. The burden of sin is heavy. What can I do to get rid of my sin?”
“Learn the Thousand Stanzas and your sin will melt away,” his father advised.
So the boy learned those supposedly holy writings. But his spiritual burden was still heavy. “Is there no other way?” he queried.
“You are young,” the father replied. “Wait for a year or two, then you may find the way.”
“But what if I should die first?” the boy responded with earnest concern.
His ongoing burden led to his coming to have an unquenched spiritual thirst. Finally, he heard a group of visiting Christians singing one of their hymns at a service in his village. The words of the chorus were: “Come home, come home. You who are weary, come home. Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling. Calling, ‘O sinner, come home’.”
The words of the hymn drew the boy like a magnet. At the Christian service, he heard the Gospel (Good News) message that God’s Son, Christ Jesus, had come into the world to save people from their sin. The boy learned that Jesus, at the end of His sinless life, had died on a cross to receive the judgment our sins deserve so we could instead be forgiven. The next day the boy trusted in Christ and His death for him on the cross to rescue him from his sin.
He afterward testified: “Where was my burden then? Where was my thirst? Gone – as the dew when it sees the sun!”
If you are weighed down with a sense of sin and guilt, I pray you’ll find relief by coming to believe in and receive Jesus as your personal Savior from sin. If I may be of any assistance to you in that matter, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
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This and many other spiritually-beneficial, real-life incidents are to be found in my book Timeless Stories, God’s Incredible Work in the Lives of Inspiring Christians.
Copyright 2020 by Vance E. Christie