Dr. Jack Kevorkian was recently released from prison, where he served eight years for giving a fatal injection to a 52 year old man who had Lou Gehrig’s disease. What he did was wrong in the eyes of God (see Q&A below), and the judicial system in the USA agrees, hence the jail time.
The interesting aspect of this whole ordeal is that Kevorkian went into the penal system a rebellious and defiant man of 71 years of age and came out as a 79 year old who was still just as brash, gruff and combative as ever.
While his time in the penitentiary did manage to keep him off the streets, it did little to make the man, known as Dr. Death, penitent. Of course, this is nothing new. Most do not come out of correctional facilities “corrected.” If anything, some going in come out “better” criminals.
What does it take then to rehabilitate a person from his errant ways?
It takes a conviction that what we are doing is wrong, and then a conversion to become a “new” person. The only way that this can truly be accomplished is by the power of God working in our lives and giving us the recognition of who and what we are, and then, who and what we can become. The heart is naturally contrary to the way of God (Jeremiah 17:9; Matthew 15:18-20), but with the power of the Holy Spirit, it can be transformed (Psalms 51:10; Ezekiel 11:19).
Some today have been given this insight to see themselves as God sees them. The question now is, what does He see? Is it the same attitudes and actions that were present at the beginning of their rehabilitation or is it a “new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24)?
