HILL

The following is a testimony by businessman Aubyn Hill at the Jamaica Broilers Group 50th anniversary celebration at the Hilton Kingston hotel, New Kingston, on Wednesday.

Christianity is for sinners! God's grace is for really vile sinners!

Consider these people:

King David - called a man after God's own heart, but was really also an adulterous murderer!

Lot - Abraham's nephew who did not want to leave Sodom and Gomorrah and had to be pulled out by God's grace and His angel!

Peter - the fast-talking fisherman-leader and arch denier!

The woman caught in adultery - Isn't it amazing how only the woman was caught? But God's personification of grace, Jesus Christ, put paid to the offensive male hypocrisy by simply, but piercingly, asking the man without any sin in the group of accusers to cast the first stone!

Saved by God's grace

God's grace is for really vile sinners!

Like the unnamed,convicted but repentant criminal, on the cross beside Jesus at Calvary!

Like the well-trained, erudite and extraordinarily brilliant but Christian-murdering Saul of Tarsus, who God's awesome grace changed into the tireless and faithful St Paul.

And so, like David, Peter, Paul and the others, I stand in this awesome pantheon of sinners saved by God's grace. God's grace is for Aubyn Hill.

As Robbie [Robert] Levy often reminds us, each one of us is capable of each and all of the worst sins ever committed!

Some genuinely honest, but obviously seriously uninformed people say I am tough and difficult - and that's the nice part of what they say!

In all seriousness, if it were not for God's grace and Christ's blood and redemption, you wouldn't even want to say hello to me.

I am sure that were it not for God's forgiveness and the transforming blood of Jesus Christ, I would not be married for six months, never mind the 25 years which Tamara and I will celebrate next month.

Without God's love, forgiveness and salvation, I would have fathered many more than the two children Tamara and I have - and with a great many 'baby mothers'.

Blessed enormously

Like the disciple Peter, who sometimes followed from some distance, I often fail, but God's grace keeps me following.

God has blessed me enormously and has taken me from my little district in south St Elizabeth to some pretty amazing institutions and places around the world and back, safely.

I marvel that the Lord God forgiveth, forgiveth and forgiveth again. So, there is nothing or no one on God's earth whom I am not able to forgive.

God's forgiveness and grace oblige me to say I am sorry and apologise when I wrong someone. That's not easy! But God's grace makes it possible.

I am simply blown away in awe, wonder, worship and praise when I consider - and only partially understand - that God's fearful judgement seat of His righteous wrath was transformed into His mercy seat by Jesus's blood and His amazing grace.

The Bible makes it clear that when God calls us to obey and serve him, one of His first commandments of service is: "Fear Not".

He gave it to Abraham in Genesis 15; to Moses often, but most dramatically in Exodus 14 at the shore of the Red Sea. He gave it to Joshua, to the disciples and to every Christian. Fear God - and you need fear no one else.

I cling to God

So brothers, Senator Obama notwithstanding:

I cling to God's relentless faithfulness!

I cling to His relentless forbearance!

I cling to Jesus's relentless forgiveness!

I cling to His relentless mercy!

I cling to God's relentless and amazing grace!

I simply have no one else as faithful and sure as Jesus. And nowhere else as safe to go. Once you submit to Him, He will never let you go! He did not, He has not, he will not let me go.

I recommend the risen, living Lord Jesus to you.