“Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.” – 1 John 3:4-6
By age fifteen, Jed Lindstrom had more money running through his hands than most kids his age, but it was all dirty money. He sold drugs and he stole.
By the time he was 18, Jed was caught in a world of addiction, theft, and drug deals.
Jed said, “The level of crimes started getting really high. I mean obviously you have a conscience. So I’m –I’m constantly knowing that what I’m doing is wrong, it really doesn’t matter.”
Over the years he bounced between crack houses, jail, and rehab. His mom often drove through the streets looking for her son, at times pulling him out of the crack houses where she found him. And she prayed.
Then in October 2004, at the age of 24, Jed was homeless and had a warrant out for his arrest. Some friends gave him a place to stay, and one Sunday they took him to church.
Jed said at the church, “They did a call for communion. And I just heard a voice say go up there. Go up there. And I remember walking up there. And that was one of the first times I really could feel the presence of God. The next morning I called my mom and says I’m done living like this.”
His mom picked him up and took him to the county jail, where he turned himself in. In his cell, he found a Bible.
Jed remembers, “So I went to the Bible right away and I literally opened up the Bible and I got on my knees and I just began to like weep. And I remember looking in the mirror just before I got on my–I was like looking at my eyes, I’m like—I, you know, I got to change. I just said, ‘God, my life is Yours.’ It was like the hatred was gone, the anger was gone. I felt like the weight of all that junk was off of me. God radically, uh, began to change my heart.”
Today Jed is an evangelist, sharing the gospel with others who have been caught up in a life of crime.
We must forsake our sin and unite with Jesus Christ. It is only then do we stop the sin in our lives. Today in prayer, confess any sin that is in your life and live in Jesus Christ.
"We live in a world full of people struggling to be, or at least to appear, strong in order not to be weak; and we follow a gospel which says that when I am weak, then I am strong. And this gospel is the only thing that brings healing." - N.T. Wright
God’s Word: “You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.” – Galatians 5:13
By Peter Kennedy, Copyright 2017, Devotional E-Mail
DEVOTIONS IN LETTERS OF JOHN