1 Corinthians 6:11 — _"And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God."_*
*THE BAD BOY WHO BECAME A MONK — MOSES THE BLACK*
Moses was terrific. If you saw him in AD 330, you would have run. He was an Ethiopian, tall, dark, and terrifying. He was a slave who was thrown out by his master for stealing and fighting. He became a gang leader in the Nile Valley. He was a murderer, an adulterer, a robber. People feared him. He once swam across a river at night with a knife in his teeth just to rob a man who had insulted him.
One night, after committing a crime, Moses ran to hide in a monastery in the desert of Scetis in Egypt, hoping the monks would shelter him. He did not know that he was running into the arms of God. The monks did not reject him. They welcomed him. They fed him. They prayed for him.
But his conversion was not instant magic. It was war. Moses struggled for years with his temper. He struggled with lust. He struggled with violence. He would go and confess to the elders again and again: "I am still angry. I am still tempted."
One day, the elders, to test him, insulted him in a meeting and told him to leave. Moses did not fight. He went out and sat quietly, weeping, and said, "They have done right to treat me like this. I deserve worse." That was the moment his transformation became real. The man who once killed for an insult had learned to take an insult for Christ.
He became so humble, so holy, so full of wisdom, that the same monks who once feared him made him a priest and then Abbot over 75 monks. At the end of his life, when robbers attacked his monastery, his monks wanted to fight. Moses said, "No. I will not shed blood again. He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword."
He told his monks to run. He stayed behind and was killed with six others not as a gangster, but as a martyr. The man who once took life for money gave his life for Christ.
God has been transforming bad people in Africa and all over the world for a long time. No one is too bad for God to change. That bad boy or girl in your area needs to be shown love through the preaching of the gospel.
If those monks had rejected Moses, they could have thrown him to the world to make him more radical in his crime. That only opportunity they had was his saving grace to meet with Christ.
Is there anyone you have written off as too bad for God's grace? Is it your brother, your child, your friend or is it you?
Have you believed the lie that because you have fallen again, God has given up on you? Moses fell again and again, but he stayed. Will you stay?
*Prayer:* Lord Jesus, You who took a murderer and made him a monk, a gangster and made him an Abbot — take me too. Wash me. Sanctify me. Justify me. I confess my anger, my lust, my past, my struggles. I am not too far for Your blood. Give me the humility of Moses, who could take an insult and not fight back. Turn my shame into a testimony. Let my life prove that "such were some of you" is still true today. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Today, reach out to one person everyone else has given up on. Tell them the story of Moses the Black. Tell them: "If God could use him, God can use you."