The Dream (22.)The Third Man

Friday is “Good Friday.” We’ve all heard the story, how Jesus carried a huge wooden cross up the hill to Golgotha knowing that was His fate, to be unmercifully nailed on that same wooden cross until dead. The same one He had to drag through the streets after being humiliated, mocked, betrayed, and beaten to a pulp.

The picture above is of three men. One being Jesus and two criminals/ thieves. I look at that picture and think of my Dad. He’s the one, like the thief that spoke to Jesus at the last minute, and asked if He would pardon his sins. Jesus did and told the thief that he would be in paradise with Him.

What makes me think of my Dad? My Dad was that thief in many ways and in many ways worse. He stole my childhood, my teen years, and part of adulthood. He stole the childhood from others, too. My Dad was a pedophile. It took me many years to forgive him. At the age of 87 my Dad hung on that cross beside Jesus and asked, just 24 hours before he died, for Jesus to forgive him his sins and gave his life to Jesus.

I think of the pain that Jesus had to have endured, (which I cannot even imagine) I think of the pain that me and others have suffered at the hands of someone else, just like Jesus suffered indignation, betrayal, and beaten. He was finally hung and died – an innocent man at the hands of others. In many ways me, and many other innocents died inside.

I think of the innocent children that are being horribly abused by the evil of others, the teen girls and boys that walk into a spiders web of evil unknowingly, and the teen and adult women used like some kind of meat to be “devoured” and then tossed aside. I think of how many are forced into using their bodies for the sick satisfaction of others and those forced into drug addiction because they can’t cope with what is happening to them.

Why am I passionate about the Into The Light Ministry home? Because it is only by the grace of God that I survived the many years of abuse by a man that, like in sex traffic situations, use them as their tool! It is the love of Christ that help them survive through it and get out of it. And it is His love, support, guidance, and care through us that will help them transition into a society that cares, not the one that betrayed them and let them down.

Christ hung, shed His innocent blood for us! For ALL of us, even those who don’t believe, who mock Him, claim He doesn’t exist, and belittle His Deity. He died a horrific death so that everyone would have hope, freedom from sin, and spend eternity with Him instead of an eternity with our adversary, Satan. There is no greater love than that!

Will you be the third man on a cross?

Would you do what Jesus did for someone that hates you?