The New Testament has, among so many glorious statements, this one: "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things become new."
The young man who mows our lawn is a shining example of this. One Christmas recently, he and his wife came to have dinner with us. She had prepared special Mayan dishes and as we were finishing eating, this man said: "I'm not the man I once was." We were not expecting what came next. Apparently when he first came to this area, he went to bars, got in fights, drank heavily. And sadly, was arrested more than once.
Well, this one night in jail he happened to pick up a Spanish New Testament someone had left. He came across something Christ Jesus says, and his life was transformed then and there, he told us. Whatever the particular words were, he couldn't stop thinking about them. When he got out of jail, his life was new. Stopped drinking, got a job, began speaking to others about what Jesus' words had done for him. And every bit of time he can spare from his lawn care work, which he needs to pay his rent, etc. he gives to spreading the Good News, as he calls it.
We knew nothing of his former life, of course. And you could not find a more reliable, sweet, hard-working, honest person than he is. This just goes to show how transforming are our Master's teachings. Thank God for them.
