BEYOND HOPE

Luke 23: 33 – 43

Just to let you know, when I was out there drinking and drugging, or running and gunning if you prefer, I wasn't really a bad guy. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't the type of guy you would want to bring home to meet the parents, but I wasn't into a lot of really bad things. I was just rotten. I couldn't be trusted, and I would lie to you, steal from you, and cheat you out of anything that I could get away with.
So, when I came to know the Lord, I believed that I was beyond hope. I felt like I had turned a corner in my life, and was living as an honorable man, but I was also convinced that I was so dirty that God would not defile himself enough to reach into the sewer that I had lived in to lift me out and cleanse my heart, and I figured that this was okay, because he at least stopped the madness in my life.
Thankfully my outlook changed. As I grew closer to God, and began to read and understand the Bible, I began to see that I was not beyond hope and that God would gladly go to any length to enter a relationship with not only me, but everyone who would come to him and ask.

39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: "Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!"
40 But the other criminal rebuked him. "Don’t you fear God," he said, "since you are under the same sentence?
41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong."
42 Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."
43 Jesus answered him, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise."

In medical situations, there is a term known as “triage”. This is a method of determining which patient needs immediate care, and which ones can wait, or which ones are beyond the skill of a doctor to heal. These are the ones who are to far gone to save.
Thankfully God doesn't work that way, and we are comforted by the fact that we are not beyond the scope of the Great Physician to heal.
Do you know someone who seems beyond hope today? Perhaps you think you are without hope. The God of the Bible specializes in giving help to those regarded as so old, so guilty, or so weak as to be beyond help.