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H ave you ever felt the more you have read Scripture and the clos er you have gotten to the Lord in fel lowship with Him, “I am so unworthy and unclean?” At a recent Bible conference in England I was speaking with an 18- year-old teenager who seemed to be a very fine Christian youth. He told me that he had a longing to be a mis sionary. Looking very wistful he ex plained sadly, “It’s no good for me. I can’t do it. You probably wouldn’t understand, but some time ago I did something which I can’t get out of my mind. It makes me so ashamed. I was away from the Lord at the time and I got myself tied up in things I shouldn’t have done. Every time I think of what I would like to do for the Lord, these thoughts come into my mind again, ‘What? You? After what you’ve done?’ So I reckon God only has special people as missionaries. I’m no good.” It wasn’t hard to see that here was a boy who had a great sense of vi sion and purpose. He had a deep love for those without Christ. His problem was in being crippled by something in his past. How frequently I have coun selled with older people who have
spoken about how their Christian service had been crippled because of things they had done as believers. Great shame and remorse was their lot. Maybe you are longing to go as a missionary, or perhaps you just de sire to be used in the church in some small way. I told this young man a story about Martin Luther who was similarly tempted. He was having a dream one night which was very vivid. The devil came to him and craftily reasoned, “You are a servant of God. Yet look at this list on which are written all the sins you have committed. How can you ever hope to serve God with such sins in your life?” In response Luther asked, “Devil, are .those all the sins? Can’t you think of some others?” And sure enough the devil could. Finally, when the lists were exhausted and satan could recall no more sins, this great man of God declared, “Pick up your pen and write across that sheet, ‘The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin.’ ” This is the message of such verses as I John 1:9 as well as the entire truth of Scripture. I had this youth read the verse aloud, “If we confess
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