It was a joyous atmosphere of celebration at the Chkalovo Church last Sunday as two people experienced the blessing of baptism - a young lady named Yulia and man named Vitaliy.  They are not related in any familial way, but they have both recently received Christ in faith as their Lord and Savior.  

  Yulia is a good, decent person, and always has been, by the world’s standard.  There’s nothing remarkable in her past, just a normal life.  

  Vitaliy, on the other hand, has spent time in prison and his entire body is covered in tattoos that evidence a life that was lived in the very fast lane.  

  Yet, when they both stood to share a few words of  testimony before their baptism, it was interesting to note that, despite the differing pasts, their words of praise and thanksgiving to God were undeniably similar.  

  The exact words they used were slightly different, but the basic message they shared was, “I praise God for saving me from my sin and changing my whole life!”  

  Now, a skeptical world would acknowledge that Vitaliy probably needed something like religion to get him on the straight track.  As for Yulia, well, that’s her personal choice, but she wasn’t hurting anyone before or doing anything all that bad, so why all the talk about sin and forgiveness?  

  It’s so easy to justify ourselves and measure our goodness by the evil and wickedness that we see in our world.  But God isn’t impressed by our self-righteousness.  He sees the person in us that no one else can see and when we stand before Him one day, all the rest will be stripped away and the only thing left standing with which to compare ourselves will be the holiness and perfection of God Himself.  

  Yulia understood that.  And so did Vitaliy.  And that simple reality is what caused them both to enter that water and make a public profession of the faith in Christ that they possess.

  In the eyes of man, they have very little, if anything, in common.  But at the foot of Calvary, where all pretense and excuse is eliminated, they found that they had one shared need:  The blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses from all sin!