When Corrie Ten Boom walked into a men’s prison in Bermuda and started talking (shouting) about Jesus and God’s power to transform lives, she couldn’t be heard because of the noise coming from the cells. When she finally shouted, “When I was in a German concentration camp during the war. . .” , suddenly it became quiet and she was able to speak for over an hour to men who hung on every word.

Maybe it was the morbid interest in gruesome tales of suffering, but certainly it was the men’s identifying with one who had been a prisoner as they were. Sharing intense experiences produces powerful bonding, and Carrie used it many times in her travels to open the door to the Gospel.

The history of Salvation is supported entirely by the deep and abiding desire of God to bond with His people and for them to bond with Him: “They will be my people and I will be their God. I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that . . . all will go well for them and for their children after them. I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me so that they will never turn away from me. I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul.” (Jeremiah32:38-41) This yearning of the Lord for the love of His people was fulfilled when He sent His son, the One who will make “singleness of heart and action” a reality on the cross.

God bonds with Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Ruth, Deborah, Samuel, David and Esther and many more of His prophets and kings. He shares His life with them so that His people can know Him and listen to Him. At least twenty eight times in the Bible God declares, “They will be my people , and I will be their God”.

In the New Testament Peter wrote to the early churches, “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His Marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God.”(1 Peter2:9&10)

Corrie Ten Boom, a middle aged Dutch woman, bonded with men in a Bermuda prison because of her time in a concentration prison. We can bond with a first century Jewish teacher and miracle worker because he agreed to die for the wrongs of the world, and now lives to bond with us.

Love in Him,

Prue