by Festo Kivengere
That afternoon when I encountered Jesus Christ, I was completely surprised by what I now know was the in-rushing of the Holy Spirit. He came and put the risen King on His throne in my heart. He flooded me with the love of God and with irrepressible joy. I began jumping and shouting there in my little room.
There was no one about and I needed to tell someone, so I rushed out onto the road and hailed the first person I met, shouting, “Jesus has come my way! I’m forgiven!”
The person was a Christian woman, a church member, but perhaps she thought I was mocking, as usual, for she went off wagging her head.
I had to find someone else, so I ran to the church. God’s people were still there and had been there ever since the morning service, because one after another had been finding Jesus that day. This was a common occurrence in Uganda in those days.
When I burst in, I excitedly told them my news and they took me into their arms, singing and rejoicing. Some laughed and some wept for joy. One after another embraced me with comforting words. Others did a kind of happy dance around me. One big man put me on his shoulder and walked around with me, not realizing that he was acting like the shepherd who said, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost” (Luke 15:6, kjv). My little sister and my niece were there and I loved them. They had been expecting me.
One beautiful thing was that I was welcomed equally by the saints of the various tribes, and I now felt entirely different toward the people of other tribes than I ever had. I knew we were all one, and it was beautiful. The cross that rescued them had rescued me and the tribal barrier was gone.
When we all sat down, my tears were flowing fast, and so one of the brothers read from the New Testament the story of the sinful woman weeping at Jesus’ feet (Luke 7:36–50).
I could picture that street woman after meeting with Jesus in the house of Simon the Pharisee. She must have rushed out of the house and begun telling everyone she met about her forgiveness. No doubt she found herself in the arms of Mary Magdalene and the other forgiven ones. I can hear her telling them all about it.
“I was miserable and lonely for so long and kept hearing about Jesus of Nazareth. So today when I saw Him going into the house of this Pharisee, I just followed Him in. I know Simon is judgmental and hard, but I had to see Jesus and nothing could keep me out.
“Jesus was reclining at table...” is perhaps the way she told them, “and they hadn’t even been decent enough to wash His feet. I know, because I was holding them, and my tears came like a flood. I couldn’t help weeping, because the burden was so great. I’ve hated myself and the life I’ve lived, and Jesus was so totally different from any man I ever knew before.
“When He turned and looked at me, I knew He understood me. His eyes were full of forgiving love that filled me with light and warmth. My heart began to vibrate because something wonderful was happening. No one accepts me, but He accepted me! I felt cleansed, covered and put together.
“My tears kept coming and I was kissing His feet, wiping them with my hair. I poured my perfumed oil on them. You can imagine how cold Simon looked—his eyes were like daggers.
He was muttering ugly things to his friends against the Master. But Jesus was willing to take the blame and be misunderstood for me. Imagine that! The very words He said were: ‘Your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.’ So now I am free and He is my Lord forever.”
I had those same feelings and tried to speak them. All around me that Sunday evening my new brothers and sisters were listening to me and encouraging me and reading me the Scriptures. Each word was fresh and exciting, as though I had never heard it before. Over and over we sang the chorus:
This man with the condemning heart would not have dared to go into the presence of God if he had not had with him this lamb, the provision God had ordained for the guilty. I could see him give it to the priest and then carefully lay his hand on its head (Lev. 4:32–35).
He watches as the lamb’s blood is spilled, knowing that God is graciously reckoning the lamb’s death instead of his own. When it is done, the priest pronounces the man forgiven, and peace comes to his heart.
“I lay my sins on Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God,” sang my new brothers and sisters. Yes, God’s Lamb was Jesus. What a costly sacrifice! How could the Father be willing to let His beloved Son leave Heaven to become the Lamb for my sin offering? But He did. And Jesus, hanging on the cross, was looking into my eyes, saying, “This death of Mine is reckoned as your death. Now you may have peace.”
The new peace from Him was confirmed to me by the brothers and sisters who fully accepted me as one of the forgiven. They did for me the work of the priest at the door of the Tabernacle who assured the man with the lamb that now he was right with God.
One after another of God’s family told me how Jesus had met him or her, and I was amazed at the variety of encounters, but always it was Love running to the rescue, to fill emptiness, to embrace loneliness, to wash away filth.
Later in the evening, some of the group accompanied me back to my house and warmed it with singing. Someone brought in some food, but better yet was the spiritual nourishment of the conversation as they told me what Jesus was doing for them.
They stayed on, and I think it was while they were praying that my mind drifted away and doubt invaded me when my eyes were closed.
I seemed to be standing in a courtroom before a severe judge and I was afraid. From one side and another there were voices accusing me. My own conscience was the prosecutor, presenting a pile of claims. They were like IOUs I had to pay. Witnesses were gazing at me reproachfully—I knew their faces.
“You were not honest here,” droned the prosecutor. I looked down.
“You acted in a mean way.”
“Mmm.”
“You failed morally.”
I had nowhere to look. On and on it went.
When you buy, you have to pay. When you sin, you have to suffer. That is what my heart told me. The Law told me so, too. I pretended I had forgotten some of the charges, but I hadn’t. And even the things in my life I was proud of didn’t help me out.
I stood bankrupt in the court of Law. I knew what it was to be insolvent, without a cent in my moral bank account. Condemned.
Then, oh, the wonder!
God Himself stepped into the courtroom. Steadily, firmly, He picked up all the things which had wrecked my humanity, all the nasty experiences of my sinful nature, all my accumulated guilt, all the accusations against me, and put them on the shoulders of His God-Man. Jesus voluntarily chose to take on Himself the responsibility for all I owed.
My heart was crying out words something like those of the hymn writer:
When I looked up, I saw that my new family sitting around the room were still praying and praising God. I was able to share with them about the courtroom and how I was acquitted.
They nodded and said, “Yes, we have stood there, too. His love drew you to see yourself as He sees you and to stand under the righteous condemnation of Heaven. Now you know what Jesus willingly took on Himself—it was all for you.”
“His gift to you,” they said, “is the strength to do what He asks: just repent and believe Him. The forgiveness is already complete, and so you felt it instantly without waiting. ‘There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’” (Rom. 8:1, rsv.)
Wonderful! Do you know what it is to have “no condemnation” singing like a bell in your heart? Can you accept it with both hands? With both feet? Let me explain.
The first time I was in London I was in a subway train called the Underground. When the train stopped and I stepped out onto the platform with my suitcases, I discovered that the way out sign pointed only to a moving staircase, an escalator. I had never seen one before, and it scared me.
For a while I watched other people get onto it and go up. Finally my need to get out began to overcome my fear of the moving stairway. Slowly, holding my bags tightly, I put one foot on the escalator.
Of course, being an automatic machine, it didn’t wait for me to get more courage. It took that one leg up, and I fell backwards! Two English people directly behind me saw that I was a stranger in trouble, and they put on me what I call “gentle pressure.” Firmly, but without embarrassing me, they got me onto the stair-case with both feet and both suitcases.
What a change! Suddenly, and gratefully, there was nothing to worry about, not even a load to carry. The stair took me and my cases right up to the top. Accepting forgiveness is stepping on with both feet to what God in Christ has already done for you. I did that, and God’s family saw it.
The brothers stayed at my house all night, quietly singing and praying.
No one urged me, or suggested it, but because of an inner nudging, I brought out my cigarettes and threw them away. We sang, “Glory to His Name!”
They kept on praising God and I gathered up other things from boxes that I wanted to get rid of in my new life. It was a kind of housecleaning, accompanied by singing.
Finally they insisted that I go to bed. I did and I slept like a baby—an unusual thing for me at that time.
In the morning we all went to our work.
In the evening they came back and stayed with me another night, singing, praying and reading the Bible, for which I now had a tremendous appetite.
“Why do you do this?” I asked one of the brothers. “Why do you love me so much?”
“Because Jesus first loved me,” he answered.
For three days it was like Heaven in my house. This is the way they broke the loneliness of one who had been far away. That is how Calvary love came to me in its first spring flood from Jesus Christ and from His brothers and sisters who loved me into His joyous Kingdom. Read more of Festo's story...
That afternoon when I encountered Jesus Christ, I was completely surprised by what I now know was the in-rushing of the Holy Spirit. He came and put the risen King on His throne in my heart. He flooded me with the love of God and with irrepressible joy. I began jumping and shouting there in my little room.
There was no one about and I needed to tell someone, so I rushed out onto the road and hailed the first person I met, shouting, “Jesus has come my way! I’m forgiven!”
The person was a Christian woman, a church member, but perhaps she thought I was mocking, as usual, for she went off wagging her head.
I had to find someone else, so I ran to the church. God’s people were still there and had been there ever since the morning service, because one after another had been finding Jesus that day. This was a common occurrence in Uganda in those days.
When I burst in, I excitedly told them my news and they took me into their arms, singing and rejoicing. Some laughed and some wept for joy. One after another embraced me with comforting words. Others did a kind of happy dance around me. One big man put me on his shoulder and walked around with me, not realizing that he was acting like the shepherd who said, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost” (Luke 15:6, kjv). My little sister and my niece were there and I loved them. They had been expecting me.
One beautiful thing was that I was welcomed equally by the saints of the various tribes, and I now felt entirely different toward the people of other tribes than I ever had. I knew we were all one, and it was beautiful. The cross that rescued them had rescued me and the tribal barrier was gone.
When we all sat down, my tears were flowing fast, and so one of the brothers read from the New Testament the story of the sinful woman weeping at Jesus’ feet (Luke 7:36–50).
I could picture that street woman after meeting with Jesus in the house of Simon the Pharisee. She must have rushed out of the house and begun telling everyone she met about her forgiveness. No doubt she found herself in the arms of Mary Magdalene and the other forgiven ones. I can hear her telling them all about it.
“I was miserable and lonely for so long and kept hearing about Jesus of Nazareth. So today when I saw Him going into the house of this Pharisee, I just followed Him in. I know Simon is judgmental and hard, but I had to see Jesus and nothing could keep me out.
“Jesus was reclining at table...” is perhaps the way she told them, “and they hadn’t even been decent enough to wash His feet. I know, because I was holding them, and my tears came like a flood. I couldn’t help weeping, because the burden was so great. I’ve hated myself and the life I’ve lived, and Jesus was so totally different from any man I ever knew before.
“When He turned and looked at me, I knew He understood me. His eyes were full of forgiving love that filled me with light and warmth. My heart began to vibrate because something wonderful was happening. No one accepts me, but He accepted me! I felt cleansed, covered and put together.
“My tears kept coming and I was kissing His feet, wiping them with my hair. I poured my perfumed oil on them. You can imagine how cold Simon looked—his eyes were like daggers.
He was muttering ugly things to his friends against the Master. But Jesus was willing to take the blame and be misunderstood for me. Imagine that! The very words He said were: ‘Your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.’ So now I am free and He is my Lord forever.”
I had those same feelings and tried to speak them. All around me that Sunday evening my new brothers and sisters were listening to me and encouraging me and reading me the Scriptures. Each word was fresh and exciting, as though I had never heard it before. Over and over we sang the chorus:
Yes, I’m washed in the blood,The Lamb! That was it. Suddenly the Old Testament account I had read in school fell into place. I could see an Israelite who knew he was a lawbreaker trudging toward the Tent of Meeting in the Sinai Desert with a lamb in his arms. I knew about white, spotless lambs because I had played with them when I herded my father’s calves and sheep.
In the soul-cleansing blood of the Lamb!
This man with the condemning heart would not have dared to go into the presence of God if he had not had with him this lamb, the provision God had ordained for the guilty. I could see him give it to the priest and then carefully lay his hand on its head (Lev. 4:32–35).
He watches as the lamb’s blood is spilled, knowing that God is graciously reckoning the lamb’s death instead of his own. When it is done, the priest pronounces the man forgiven, and peace comes to his heart.
“I lay my sins on Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God,” sang my new brothers and sisters. Yes, God’s Lamb was Jesus. What a costly sacrifice! How could the Father be willing to let His beloved Son leave Heaven to become the Lamb for my sin offering? But He did. And Jesus, hanging on the cross, was looking into my eyes, saying, “This death of Mine is reckoned as your death. Now you may have peace.”
The new peace from Him was confirmed to me by the brothers and sisters who fully accepted me as one of the forgiven. They did for me the work of the priest at the door of the Tabernacle who assured the man with the lamb that now he was right with God.
One after another of God’s family told me how Jesus had met him or her, and I was amazed at the variety of encounters, but always it was Love running to the rescue, to fill emptiness, to embrace loneliness, to wash away filth.
Later in the evening, some of the group accompanied me back to my house and warmed it with singing. Someone brought in some food, but better yet was the spiritual nourishment of the conversation as they told me what Jesus was doing for them.
They stayed on, and I think it was while they were praying that my mind drifted away and doubt invaded me when my eyes were closed.
I seemed to be standing in a courtroom before a severe judge and I was afraid. From one side and another there were voices accusing me. My own conscience was the prosecutor, presenting a pile of claims. They were like IOUs I had to pay. Witnesses were gazing at me reproachfully—I knew their faces.
“You were not honest here,” droned the prosecutor. I looked down.
“You acted in a mean way.”
“Mmm.”
“You failed morally.”
I had nowhere to look. On and on it went.
When you buy, you have to pay. When you sin, you have to suffer. That is what my heart told me. The Law told me so, too. I pretended I had forgotten some of the charges, but I hadn’t. And even the things in my life I was proud of didn’t help me out.
I stood bankrupt in the court of Law. I knew what it was to be insolvent, without a cent in my moral bank account. Condemned.
Then, oh, the wonder!
God Himself stepped into the courtroom. Steadily, firmly, He picked up all the things which had wrecked my humanity, all the nasty experiences of my sinful nature, all my accumulated guilt, all the accusations against me, and put them on the shoulders of His God-Man. Jesus voluntarily chose to take on Himself the responsibility for all I owed.
My heart was crying out words something like those of the hymn writer:
Nothing in my hand I bring,All at once release came again—and joy.
Simply to Thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress;
Helpless, look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Saviour, or I die!
When I looked up, I saw that my new family sitting around the room were still praying and praising God. I was able to share with them about the courtroom and how I was acquitted.
They nodded and said, “Yes, we have stood there, too. His love drew you to see yourself as He sees you and to stand under the righteous condemnation of Heaven. Now you know what Jesus willingly took on Himself—it was all for you.”
“His gift to you,” they said, “is the strength to do what He asks: just repent and believe Him. The forgiveness is already complete, and so you felt it instantly without waiting. ‘There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’” (Rom. 8:1, rsv.)
Wonderful! Do you know what it is to have “no condemnation” singing like a bell in your heart? Can you accept it with both hands? With both feet? Let me explain.
The first time I was in London I was in a subway train called the Underground. When the train stopped and I stepped out onto the platform with my suitcases, I discovered that the way out sign pointed only to a moving staircase, an escalator. I had never seen one before, and it scared me.
For a while I watched other people get onto it and go up. Finally my need to get out began to overcome my fear of the moving stairway. Slowly, holding my bags tightly, I put one foot on the escalator.
Of course, being an automatic machine, it didn’t wait for me to get more courage. It took that one leg up, and I fell backwards! Two English people directly behind me saw that I was a stranger in trouble, and they put on me what I call “gentle pressure.” Firmly, but without embarrassing me, they got me onto the stair-case with both feet and both suitcases.
What a change! Suddenly, and gratefully, there was nothing to worry about, not even a load to carry. The stair took me and my cases right up to the top. Accepting forgiveness is stepping on with both feet to what God in Christ has already done for you. I did that, and God’s family saw it.
The brothers stayed at my house all night, quietly singing and praying.
No one urged me, or suggested it, but because of an inner nudging, I brought out my cigarettes and threw them away. We sang, “Glory to His Name!”
They kept on praising God and I gathered up other things from boxes that I wanted to get rid of in my new life. It was a kind of housecleaning, accompanied by singing.
Finally they insisted that I go to bed. I did and I slept like a baby—an unusual thing for me at that time.
In the morning we all went to our work.
In the evening they came back and stayed with me another night, singing, praying and reading the Bible, for which I now had a tremendous appetite.
“Why do you do this?” I asked one of the brothers. “Why do you love me so much?”
“Because Jesus first loved me,” he answered.
For three days it was like Heaven in my house. This is the way they broke the loneliness of one who had been far away. That is how Calvary love came to me in its first spring flood from Jesus Christ and from His brothers and sisters who loved me into His joyous Kingdom. Read more of Festo's story...
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