“Provoking Christian Insights” series

Part 13

“It’s never too late to change our lifestyle”

This column is a little late because I didn’t know exactly where I was to go with it. As the week went on it became clear to me that I was to write with some urgency about where our lives are going. It all came out of my last column where the scary part of Revelation Chapter 10 sees a third of the world burned up and what’s left of the people forced to make a life or death decision.

What is apparent here is the fact that a lot of people I know are waiting “just a little longer” before making a decision to follow Jesus. The bad thing is that most of them never make it and the Grim Reaper swings his scythe and cuts them down before they change their ways or ask Jesus to forgive their sins.

Worse, if you read your Bible closely you see that nobody just dies dead. Not only does the person who goes to heaven die, but so does everyone heathen or saved. How would you like to burn in hell for 30 million years knowing that you’ve only just begun? Scary huh?

Think about it. Perhaps the thought isn’t real enough to cause terror in your heart. As Pastor Lee told about the Homiletics teacher saying that Hell should be preached with tears running down your face because it’s real and its true what is going to happen to those of us who don’t accept Christ as our very own personal Savior.

I heard a man tell another man the he “didn’t want to be standing next to a certain person on Judgment Day. I don’t suspect that I would want to stand in front of God knowing that all my sins were there to see. The Bible tells us that we “condemn ourselves.” Wouldn’t it be lovely if we were forgiven before we got there?

My destiny

Often in the old Western stories a lot of comments were made about “spending eternity in Hell.” Some of the bad guys knew where they were going and spoke about as if they had an appointment with their destiny in Satan’s hot-house.

I don’t care how old you are or how much “sinning” that you have accomplished there is a way. Actually there are two ways (Matthew 7:13,14). “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult it the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.

Jesus made it clear, “No one comes to the Father except through Me.” Not by Him, not near Him, but “through Him.”  Isaiah 35:4 “He will come and save you,” is a solid promise. He will do it.

I don’t care how many books you have read …the Bible comes first. Pastor Lee emphasized that “no matter how many commentaries you have read … or columns like this one, or TV programs that you have taken in the comments of those giving them … the Bible should be the only final stop for you. Your forever is more important than taking at face value what someone tells you.

So … how do I do this?

Jesus said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free,” John 8:32. Pilate asked Jesus “What is truth?” After saying this, Pilate went out to the Jews and said, “I find no fault in this man at all!”

Numbers 23: 19 said, ‘God is not a man that He should lie.” God is not a liar and you and I shouldn’t be liars either. It is impossible for God to lie. It is impossible for God to look upon sin. Jesus is the intermediary and Jesus told the Romans; “to present their bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God which is our reasonable service, and be not conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

The age of man is 70 years or more according to Scripture. Some people feel that they can sin for 70 years and get a reprieve from God through His Son Jesus. In fact they can … but as man gets older he has a tendency to harden in his heart. The harder a heart gets the harder it is to open up and to ask Jesus to come in! I think that this is part of the reason that Christ said “today is the day of Salvation!” Get rid of what is wrong.

2 Peter 3:8 says, “but, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” Forever is as long - long time. I used to dream of falling off the earth, and falling and falling, and falling never stopping falling. It was my way of measuring eternity. It worked … it scared me every time. The length of forever should scare you as well. “Time marches on” … to frame an old newsreel cliché. Just sit and stare at a clock sometime … the second hand just keeps moving ahead at a plodding pace. This is how forever will be ... never ending time.

Strayed?

Everyone has strayed at some point or another. Some people believe “Once saved, always saved.” Others don’t. There is a Scripture that says ‘My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone would bring him back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins.” James 5:19-20

INSPIRATION “The person who saves the stray from death sends heaven into a celebration,” Rev. Ray La Salle.

There is a lot of work to do

Write: croneis@earthlink.net