1 Corinthians 6:11 (NLT) says, “Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
As I was reading this passage of scripture, I was reminded of a man I had read about who lives in London, England, named Joshua Coombes. Joshua Coombes did something that changed his life forever. He was walking to a friend’s house after finishing work at a hairdressing salon when he stopped to talk to a homeless man he’d seen many times in the same spot. In the past, Joshua had bought the man something to eat or given him some spare change, but this time a thought occurred to Joshua: how about I offer him a haircut? He had his gear in his backpack, so he cut the man’s hair right where he was on the street. As he worked, the two of them fell into the chatty intimacies of barber and client, opening up to each other. The next time they met, the man introduced Joshua to a couple of his friends, and he got his clippers and scissors out for them too.
Soon, he was out on the streets of London as often as possible, enjoying the chance to change often desperate lives in a small, surprising way. He soon started a movement called Do Something for Nothing. Joshua sees beneath the surface of homelessness, and through the simple act of a haircut, he shows love and acceptance to those who carry many burdens. He takes an everyday activity and turns it into something potentially transformative.
In 1 Corinthians 6:11, although Paul teaches about lawsuits against believers, he also reminds us of the unrighteous. Unless they repent of their sins, they will not inherit the kingdom of God. In verse eleven, he reminds us that we were just like those sinners, and only by God’s grace and forgiveness were we forgiven, sanctified and justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
When we turn our lives over to the Lord, we are made new. Like a fresh haircut, the old stuff is trimmed away, and a fresh new look emerges. We feel better, and the joy of the Lord spills out onto our faces and actions. We can extend the same grace and acceptance to others, and by sharing God’s love with others, the Holy Spirit will use us to bring others to Jesus. Through the transforming work of the Holy Spirit, we become a new creation, and our hearts are changed. By accepting Jesus into our hearts and allowing Him to transform us from the inside, we allow Him to change our desperate lives in not a small way but a life-transforming way.
We, too, were homeless, separated from our heavenly Father, stuck in our grief and shame and feeling uncared for. But thanks to Jesus, we have been washed and made holy in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Elizabeth Purcell
Jane, thank you for this blog. It is a beautiful reminder of the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ! He washes us white as snow and makes us new and whole again. It is not by our “doing” we are made new. It is true our faith in what Christ has already done. “It is finished.”