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Feb 07, 2025 06:00am

From Rotten to Restored

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Rotten. Every stinking one of them. Our apple crop was a bust this year. As we pulled apples from the tree, we just felt disgusted.

Every apple had something wrong with it. Even those that looked okay from the outside had a defect. Some were just rotten. Others had holes in them, pecked by the birds and chewed by the squirrels. Several were already on the ground and had busted open, revealing their squishy insides.

The chickens wouldn’t even go near them, and neither would the deer. It was such a waste. We were so disheartened.

We are like those apples.

Romans 3:9-18NIV
“What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin.
10 As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; 11 there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God.
12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”
13 “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.”“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”
14 “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 ruin and misery mark their ways,
17 and the way of peace they do not know.”
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Rotten. Every stinking one of us. Full of holes and decay. Broken, busted, and spoiled.

Why?

Because we’ve fallen, we’ve been separated from the source of life, God Himself. Even those that may look good on the outside are decaying on the inside.

Paul made it clear to the Roman believers that ALL people are sinners, Gentiles and Jews. We all have sinned. We are all unrighteous. We all are worthless.

No one is innocent of sin before the Lord.

If you’re thinking right now that you aren’t so bad, let me ask you this.

Would you eat an apple with only one worm in it?

One sin is just as bad as 100.

“Well, I’m certainly not as bad as those people…”

Your imperfections and rotten places are not in competition with other apples. If you’re rotten, you’re rotten.

And what did we do with all those rotten apples?

We threw them out.

Discarded.

Dumped.

Left to rot away.

Even the animals wouldn’t come near them.

Is that what’s to become of us?

Although God has every right to discard us, to destroy us, He offers us hope instead.

He gave us Jesus.

And Jesus gives us grace.

The One whom there is no blemish. The perfect, sinless, Son of God. He came to restore us, to take our rotting flesh and make us new. In Christ, we are a new creation. He molds us and makes us into something beautiful. Something useful.

We can’t deny we are sinners. But we can accept Christ’s offer to forgive us of those sins and for Him to work within us to restore us. Will you do that today? Will you put your trust in Jesus?

Not sure what that looks like? Let me show you. Go to follow.lifeword.org and learn what it means to have a relationship with Jesus.