We All Come “As Is”

I had some inspiration this morning to write this devotional while I was waiting for my car to be fixed again!

I can imagine we have all been to a used car dealership and saw cars that were beat up and barely able to be driven. Maybe you thought “I can’t believe someone would try to sell that car to someone”! Perhaps you would say “ I don’t know why someone would buy that car, it’s junk”! But there is always someone who sees that junk car as something completely different. That person buys that car “as is” with a smile because they know how to restore it to its previous state.

I was a very troubled person filled with fears, hopelessness, anger and was an alcoholic. Most days I would think about where my life went wrong. It was going just as God planned, I was the one who went wrong in the choices I made because God gave us self-will to make our own choices. All of the years of suffering took its toll and so many times I felt that life had little value except a never ending misery and pain for grief. I thought it would never end, so I tried to end it myself. Yes I tried to end my own life but God had different plans for me.

I knew I needed help but had to be the one to find it and I did. One day my sister gave me the website for a church she went to, I believe she knew I needed Jesus but didn’t force feed me anything about Him. I was definitely looking for a real understanding of God because for my entire life I never knew. Honestly I had a huge resentment towards God because I blamed Him for everything I thought that was bad in my life.

Two months after trying to end my life I surrendered myself to Jesus Christ, my lord and savior. You see Jesus specialized in someone like myself who felt like a worthless cast off much like that beat up old car sitting on the lot. Jesus waits for anyone who trusts Him and wants to be transformed. I was reading through his passage this morning (2 Corinthians 5:14-21) and between sitting at the car dealership and reading it, it was on my heart to write this devotional today with the hopes that someone reading this will let Jesus take the “AS IS” and restore their life so that they would no longer be lost but restored, just as He promises.

I love this specific verse from the passage, verse 17 because it confirms through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ we are a new creation and that our old lives have passed on.

Please feel free to share this with anyone who you feel could benefit from reading this today!

Thank you 🙏

-Bill H