Kyle didn’t realize it, but he was ruining his life. He thought he was living the big life. The parties on the weekend were wild and carefree. His job was making him a lot of money to play with. His friends were just as wild as he was. But he didn’t realize how ruined he was. He didn’t realize the paranoid feelings he was getting more and more were because his brain was getting fried on party drugs. He didn’t realize how bad his health was getting because of the lack of sleep. He didn’t realize the diseases growing in his body because of the multiple partners he slept with. He didn’t realize his party friends were disloyal and really despised him. He didn’t realize it, but his life was ruined.

But a friend realized it. She saw the wild pictures on Instagram. She heard from this other friend about his drug habit. She knew how ruined his life had become. So she rescued him. It wasn’t easy, Kyle resisted. But she eventually convinced him that he was a mess. And when the cloud of fantasy that had become Kyle’s life lifted and he saw who he really was, Kyle was filled with guilt and dread at what he had become. But his friend rescued him out of that life and led him to a better one.

That can happen, to us, too, you know. We sometimes live our lives in a fantasy of who we think we are. We ignore our addiction to sin and the disease of wickedness that lurks in our hearts. We forget how ruined sin makes us.

That is, until God dispels the fantasy to rescue us.

The same thing once happened to a sinful man named Isaiah. Here's what happened, in his own words, "Woe to me!" I cired, "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips..." Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for." (Isaiah 6:5-7)

Rescued from ruined. No matter the sin, no matter the grace, your sin is atoned for, your guilt taken away. This is God's special work for sinners like us.