Never Again!

Source: Good News Magazine

“Never again!” How often have people expressed these words! They sound like an oath, or even a pious promise. “Never again!” All who have ever had to feel the trouble caused by ways or deeds for which they themselves alone are to blame will know ‘the phrase only too well. Α proverb says: “Once bitten, twice shy.” But it is equally true that the pathway to hell is paved with good intentions.

One young man avowed never again to go the ways of immorality and vice in secret. Another determined to avoid corrupt company. Α third wanted to give up gambling, while a fourth promised to stop deceiving his parents with lies and speaking harshly to them.
 
Just as a diseased tree cannot bear sοund fruit, so man has by nature no ability to produce any good. The Lord Jesus Christ presents us with a decision: “Either make the tree good, and his fruit good, or else make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt” (Matthew 12:33). This is the point at issue: the tree must undergo a radical change to produce good fruit. How can such a change take place in human beings?
 
Whoever turns to Jesus Christ, frankly admitting his sins and putting his trust fully in the Saviour, obtains forgiveness and new life. He becomes“a new creature” (2 Corinthians 5:17), both saved and freed from the dominance of sin and now able to “walk in newness of life”, so that he no longer “should serve sin” (Romans 3:6).