A YOUNG girl wanted to have her sins forgiven. She had a Bible which she read and in which she had marked some verses. One of these was 1 Peter 1:1616Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy. (1 Peter 1:16): “Be ye holy; for I am holy.”
A gospel preacher, looking at her Bible asked why she had marked that particular verse, and she replied, “I marked it because I thought I must be holy in order to be saved. I wanted to remember that the Bible says that.”
“Well, how did you get on?” asked the preacher.
“I tried to be holy, but I couldn’t seem to make myself any better.”
The preacher turned the page of the Bible and pointed to another verse. “Read this,” he said.
“Who is the ‘just’ one mentioned there?”
“Jesus,” the girl answered.
“And who is the ‘unjust'?”
“Me.”
“Now, then, read that verse again, but put yourself and Jesus in it.”
So she read again from her Bible: “Christ also hath once suffered for sins, JESUS for Me, that He might bring Me to God.”
Yes, that is the gospel, the story of God’s wonderful love for lost sinners. Jesus, the Son of God, died in my place, for my sins.
As she read the verse in that special way, the girl realized that salvation from sins was not to be obtained by making herself better or by anything else she might do. All was done long ago when Jesus died on Calvary’s cross. Now all she had to do was to confess that she was a guilty sinner, and to believe in simple faith that Jesus had died for her. She did that and she was saved for all eternity.
You can have salvation in that same way, right now.
ML-12/08/1963