“This Is What I Want”
Five hundred miles from his village home on the bank of the Godavery River, a tall Hindu had traveled across the sultry plains under the scorching sun, wearing’ painful sandals that had blistered his feet until they were inflamed and swollen out of all shape.
What was the cause and what was the purpose of such a journey? I will tell you. The tall Indian had for long been laboring under a burden of unforgiven sin, which of all burdens is the heaviest and hardest to bear. He had gone to his priest and told him his trouble, but they, like himself, knew nothing of Jesus, who is the Rest for the sin-burdened soul. They sent him on a pilgrimage to an idol shrine, torturing himself all the way, so that he might be pleasing to the gods and thus appease their anger. But these Indian gods are no gods at all. Their deluded worshippers receive from them no love, no mercy, nor blessing.
Blessed be His name, the God of the Bible is a God of love, who so loved His enemies as to give His only begotten Son to seek and to save them, and who, although He is holy and just, is yet full of compassion and delights to save and make happy all who come to Him.
Passing through a village, the unhappy man, footsore and weary, came upon a company of Hindus standing around a missionary. Under the wide spreading shade of a tree, the missionary was telling the story of redeeming love to the natives in their own language. So uncommon was the sight, so unheard of were the words, that the Hindu stood still and listened.
Now the gospel of the grace of God is good news to people of every nation, and no matter where a sinner is found, it comes to him “as water to a thirsty soul,” exactly meeting his need, and bringing near to him that which he has vainly sought elsewhere to obtain.
The servant of Christ spoke plainly, pointedly and solemnly about sin, its nature and its punishment. He told how foolish it was to suppose that bathing in sacred waters, offering gifts to dumb idols, or doing penance by hurting the body, could take away the sin of the soul. Last of all, he told of the precious blood of Christ, shed on Calvary to atone for sin, and quoted the ever-precious words of 1 John 1:77But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. (1 John 1:7): “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.”
Now the gospel is God’s power unto salvation. Even man who has never heard it before, may be brought out of the dark regions of idolatry into the light and liberty of God’s salvation by its mighty delivering power. As the Indian stood under the tree listening to the message, his longing soul drank in every word. Pulling off his sandals, which had so many a day and night hurt him, he threw them away, and lifting up his arms cried aloud, “This is what I want; this is what I want.”
The missionary was very glad to take him to his home and tell him more fully of the One who died for sinners, whose precious blood cleanseth from all sin, and who gives rest to the weary, sin-burdened soul. The Indian was saved, just as you must be, if you want to be saved—by simply believing, by trusting in Jesus.
For many years, he showed by his life that he was a genuine disciple of Christ.
Mere works, prayers, nor religion, cannot cleanse the soul from sin. Nothing can make a sinner white as snow and fitted for heaven, but the blood of Jesus. Dear reader, do you know personally its cleansing power? Has your conscience been relieved of its burden and set at rest, through faith in that atoning blood of Christ?
ML 01/17/1965