But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. Romans 5:8
“I was ready to end my life,” said Misha, a soldier who just returned from war.
Misha and his fellow countrymen never asked for war. Many of the soldiers he was fighting on the other side never asked for it either. Caught up in a power struggle, he came home a broken young man.
“I was in some of the worst parts of the fighting on the frontlines,” he shared. “When I came home, my mother couldn’t even look me in the eyes. I didn’t know why … was I that scary? This broke me.”
Away from the battlelines, Misha turned to his radio for distraction.
“I was sitting alone in my room—in the dark—and I just couldn’t take it anymore. I had my combat knife in my hands, ready to end my life. That’s when I heard you talking about the love of God as a Father. You said that my life meant something. And when you talked about Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross, I began to understand what that really meant.”
Misha heard that God “showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners” (Romans 5:8). Suddenly, he understood that “ … this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have [everlasting] life” (John 3:16). Misha repented, accepted God’s offer of forgiveness and became God’s adopted son.
“I didn’t think it was possible for things to change,” Misha says, “but now, I’m going to go to church.”
God’s love broke through to Misha when he heard about it in a devotional broadcast shared in his own language. You can help send devotionals like this to millions around the world in their own languages. Give a gift today at guidelines.org
