Adam
By Elizabeth Cole
“Do you not know that the unrighteous and the wrongdoers will not inherit or have any share in the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived (misled): neither the impure and immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor those who participate in homosexuality, nor cheats (swindlers and thieves), nor greedy graspers, nor drunkards, nor foulmouthed revilers and slanderers, nor extortioners and robbers will inherit or have any share in the kingdom of God. And such some of you were [once]. But you were washed clean (purified by a complete atonement for sin and made free from the guilt of sin), and you were consecrated (set apart, hallowed), and you were justified [pronounced righteous, by trusting] in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the [Holy] Spirit of our God.”
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 (The Amplified Bible)
I knew this guy once whom I could hardly stand. He was arrogant, lived a self-indulgent lifestyle, and treated those who loved him most with contempt. For conversation’s sake, let’s call him Adam, after the most influential sinner we know.
I was “Eve’s” friend and I abhorred what Adam was doing to his family. If you’d asked me who was the last name on my list of those potentially giving their love and their lives to Jesus, I would’ve said, “Hands-down, Adam.”
One night, I left Adam’s house seething. All the way home, I ranted to God about the injustices I’d just witnessed; what a jerk this guy was; how God needed to do something. As I pulled into my driveway, our God totally took my breath (and my condescension) away. “What would you be doing differently right now if you knew for sure that someday Adam would be your brother? That in the future, he’s going to turn and follow Me?”
If you ever doubt that God knows us in the most private places of our hearts, just have a conversation like this with Him. In two quick sentences, He pinpointed my prideful heart, my judgmental spirit, and my haughty assumption that I was, somehow, more deserving of God’s grace than Adam. Yet truly, the Kingdom of God is peopled with a bunch of ragamuffins who’ve been washed clean of a whole lot of ugly dirt…“and such some of you were once.” Not a single one of us is in the running for the prize of “Most Deserving.” And not one of us can predict who next will turn and follow Christ.
About Adam? He did.
GOING DEEPER
1. What kinds of people are most reviling to you? Any chance God’s calling you to love them in a way that cooperates with the “unimaginable” that God might be getting ready to do in their lives?
2. As a Christ-follower, washed clean from your previous lifestyle, have you thanked God recently for His freedom?
FURTHER READING:
Colossians 3:5-14; Acts 26:9-18; Ephesians 2:1-10
Elizabeth is a wife, mother to three grown daughters, and Director of Connecting and Women’s Ministries at Oakwood Church.
