“And he was saying, ‘Jesus, remember me when You come in Your Kingdom!’
And He said to him, ‘Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.'”
(Luke 23:42-43)
This passage is taken from the account of the crucifixion of Jesus.
There were two crooks who were crucified with him. One crook mocked Jesus, the other crook praised Jesus. In this life, we experience so many things that are crooked, bent or slanted. Situations of injustice or indifference.
We eventually confront bent places in our own heart. None of us yearns to confront the “criminality” in our own soul, but sooner or later there we are: right next to Jesus. And we have two choices. Continue to deflect, blame, shift and ignore…or escort our contorted soul to Christ.
When we choose the latter, Jesus applies His divine grace and truth to a splintered heart overwhelmed by the various maladies of bitterness, hopelessness, despair, resentment and a host of other infirmities that tear away at the foundation of our inner man. And then we are reminded that, because of our union with Christ, these crooked hearts already reside in Paradise and our Savior went to the cross to make these bent hearts pure.
At Desire Street, we purpose to walk alongside our partners because, apart from their own brokenness, they witness so much pain in the neighborhoods they live and serve in.
Our triumphant Christ is transforming that pain into Paradise!
God bless,
Anthony Gordon
Photo by Jussara Romão on Unsplash
