Near Or Far

And came and preached peace to you which were far off, and to them that were nigh. Ephesians 2:17

There are a myriad of testimonies out there. There are people who came to Christ from lives of great sin and degredation, drug use, alcolholism, immorality, violence, hatred. And there are those who were raised in Christian homes and saved as children, who've never made the sort of choices that haunt others. People like to glory in the stories of the former...and many would rather build their churches on the latter. The reality, however, is that Christ brought the same good news for all of us. It took the same blood to redeem the "innocent" child as the aged drunk; just as much a miracle of grace to save the upstanding businessman as the maligned hooker. And He came to preach the same message of peace to each one of us, "far" from Him or "near". Your story isn't any less important or wonderful if you didn't have a lifetime of deep sin to be saved out of. You aren't any less a child of God if you rejected Him and His way for decades. The blood of Christ--His love, mercy, grace and peace flowing in it--is the ultimate equalizer.