Last week, I was talking with a friend about a concept that I’ve known and thought about since my brain began functioning at an intelligible level. Before you start your jokes, let’s just say it’s an idea that I’ve considered for a while. But strangely, my friend brought this concept into a perspective that I’d never considered before. Kinda like when you watch the movie Forrest Gump. I first saw that movie when I was in elementary school. And by the 12th time I’d seen it as a teenager, there were still jokes and nuances that I’d never noticed before. This was sorta like that, only a thousand times more important.
The topic of conversation was salvation. And although I could probably write a novel on my ideas (or questions) of salvation, the simplicity of this particular conversation was dumbfounding. In the midst of our convoluted arguments about who is saved, or what it means to be saved, or how can we be saved, my friend noted profoundly, “Didn’t Jesus die for all the sins of mankind?” And as I looked at him with my condescending facial expression and the response of “duh” on the tip of my tongue, he continued, “So then doesn’t that mean that everyone is already forgiven of every sin they’ve ever committed, but also every sin they’re going to commit?” Now because I’m cynical and stubborn, my first inclination was to respond smartly, “No. That’s too easy.” But I stopped myself, thought about it for a second, and realized he was right. “But,” I said, determined to one-up my friend on the depth of the conversation, “you have to realize that and repent.”
Think of it this way. Someone left you court-side tickets to the NBA Finals at will-call (if you’re not a sports fan, then backstage passes to a Coldplay concert). You know they did because they told you 100 times. They told your closest friend, sent you a text, left you a voicemail, sent out an email, and even left it as their Facebook status in case you missed all of the above. All you have to do is go to will-call, show some ID, and pick up the tickets. And more than half of us won’t ever get those tickets. Why? Because we totally blew it off. We told that Someone that it was too inconvenient to stop by will-call, or that we were going to try another way to get our tickets. We told That Person, “Nah, I don’t believe you. Nothing is for free.” Or maybe, we got caught up in something else, and by the time we showed up to will-call, the window was closed. Or even worse, we’re still trying to pay the guy at will-call and he’s looking at us like we’re idiots because, hello, the tickets are free.
I realized in a matter of a sentence, that not only am I an idiot, but most of the people I know are idiots as well. What’s it gonna take for us to realize the tremendous, infinite gift that Christ gave us through His grace? Of all the ways for someone to get their point across, I would say sacrificing their own life is at the top somewhere. Maybe just right before a PowerPoint presentation. And yet we have seen and we have heard what many prophets and righteous men have desired to see and hear.
I pray for the deaf and the blind.
1 comment:
I think we can all agree that the concept of salvation is in fact very simple. It is through God's amazing Grace that we have salvation and nothing else can take that away from us, at the same time, nothing we can ever do can make us worthy of His Grace. It is AFTER we accept His Grace that we then are responsible for our faith, our works, our acts of love towards Him and others. These however are all personal and circumstantial. We should not try to guess if we are going to Heaven based on what so and so does and compare, because we already have been "saved". We should however strive towards Heaven because of our love for Him and the fact that we want to be with Him for eternity.
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