Dr. Thomas Romo is a plastic surgeon at Lenox Hospital in New York.  Last August, Dr. Romo observed an unusual feature on the face of a painter that was doing some work on his home.  He took a closer look and instantly recognized that the puffy, elongated, discolored nose on Conrado Estrada’s face was due to rhinophyma, a type of skin inflammation.  Dr. Romo determined that he wanted to help Estrada, free of charge.

About a month later, Dr. Romo operated on Estrada.  The doctor said his patient’s transformation was phenomenal.  “It was impressive to be [in] his presence,” Romo said.  “I could just see from looking at him, his stature, his smile – all the things that you didn’t see before.  Here’s a guy who has been transformed.” *

The Great Physician looks at each of us and instantly diagnoses our greatest malady: we are all sinners.  “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).  We do things we know we shouldn’t.  We don’t do the good that we should.  Our condition should be obvious to us – “as plain as the nose on our face” – but many don’t recognize it.  Others ignore it.

Our holy God can’t ignore it.  Our sin separates us from Him (Isaiah 59:1-2).  He loves us anyway and He longs to be united with us.  He wants to give us a new life, even eternal life, with Him.  Something must be done about our sin.  So God did something about it.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 ESV).

“But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

Jesus, the Son of God, died on the cross for our sins (1 Peter 2:24) so that through Him we can receive the forgiveness of our sins and the gift of eternal life.

“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace” (Ephesians 1:7).

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

Our salvation is a gift.  Eternal life is a gift.  We don’t deserve these gifts, but our gracious God offers them to us.  We must accept them on His terms.

God will save from sin and give eternal life to those who place their faith and trust in Jesus (Acts 16:30-31), turn from their sins in repentance (Acts 17:30-31), confess Jesus before men (Romans 10:9-10), and are baptized (immersed) into Christ for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38).  He will continue to cleanse from sin those who continue to walk in the light of His Word (1 John 1:7-9).

* Information gleaned from “New York painter with rare deformity gets new nose for Christmas” by Bradford Betz of Fox News, www.foxnews.com.

David A. Sargent, Minister

Church of Christ at Creekwood 
1901 Schillinger Rd. S.
Mobile, Alabama  36695

Archived issues of Living Water can be viewed and accessed from our website at: www.creekwoodcc.org