Jan 01 2009
God’s Salvation Sweepstakes
Is there ever a week that passes where we go to the mailbox and don’t find a contest entry form? Publisher’s Clearing House, Readers Digest, Meredith Corporation, Pepperidge Farms, even pet supply companies offer some type of potential windfall for entering their contests. The lure of, “something-for-nothing,” is overwhelming and the expense allotted to these mailing campaigns is enormous! It’s JUNK-MAIL! most of it ends up in the trash, but a lot of folks take the time to send in an entry, and while they don’t expect to win anything, they think, “Why not?”
The other day, on my way back from the mailbox, I spotted an envelope that boldly beckoned, “Important Notice For You!” I usually don’t pay much attention to these types of pitches, but what really caught my eye, and stood out as the reason for this column, were the words on the tear-away card stuck to the back of the envelope. There were lots of enticements there, “Approved for one free gift; Gift status - approval pending; Etc…” but in big, half inch letters, on either end of the card were the words, “DETACH and RETURN.”
I thought, “This is what God should do, send out a Salvation Sweepstakes, entry mailing.” This was immediately followed by the knowledge that He already has, but I couldn’t help thinking about the easy acceptance of these contest invitations by the masses and at the same time, the difficulty of those same people accepting the invitation of salvation by faith in Christ. So what if Heaven were the prize in a sweepstakes? The terminology is already in place, you just need to see it in the right light, (the light of Heaven), to bend it to the Christian purpose.
IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR YOU - Our lives are forever. We spend the first part of our lives here on earth in these mortal shells, and while we are here, we are given the opportunity to consider eternity, (the second part of our forever lives). God tells us , in His Word that Jesus Christ paid the price for our sin and by faith in Him, we have the promise of eternity in Heaven. Without Jesus, we are forever lost. Now this is an important notice! What could be a more important notice than the choice between the only two options for your eternal destiny?
APPROVED FOR ONE FREE GIFT - The term, “Free Gift,” is actually redundant as no gift can be anything but free. If it were not, it wouldn’t be a gift at all. There is nothing we can do to assure our destiny on our own. No work we can perform, no goal we can achieve, no ritual we can fulfill will be enough to satisfy the justice of our perfect God. But the good news is that He has established a way we can be justified and reconciled to Him. God loves us. John 3:16, perhaps the best known verse in the Bible, reads, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” This is the gift of God, offered to us. God offers to us the very thing that we could never accomplish on our own, no matter how hard we might try. And this gift of God is already done, we need only agree to accept it.
GIFT STATUS - APPROVAL PENDING - The one thing that’s missing is our willingness to actually accept the gift. The approval IS pending but it all hangs in the balance of the decision we make for our Lord Christ Jesus. It’s as if there were one gift left at Christmas with our name on the tag, just waiting for us to open it; so many people refuse to receive the gift, the one gift, the only gift that God sets before us that guarantees our eternal destiny. This gift costs us nothing, yet demands everything. We have nothing that can purchase the gift, not money, not effort, not anything we can do; but when we accept it, our whole world changes. We give up all of our will to become subject to the will of God through Jesus Christ.
Sin must be punished, a price must be exacted. But the price does not come out of our pocket, it has been paid for us already. The gift, which is free to us, cost God the mortal life of His Only Begotten Son. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2Cor 5:21. The sin that had to be punished, your sin, my sin, all the sin of the world, was paid at the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary’s cross. This is the wrapped gift with our name on the tag. But unless we accept the gift, it becomes useless to us. We can never benefit from the death and resurrection of Jesus, an event so monumental that time itself, divides around it; unless we will receive the gift.
DETACH AND RETURN - This is the instruction we are given by God. This is the change that we must allow to be made manifest in our hearts in order to become an adopted child of the Most High. We are so easily consumed in this fallen world of materialistic gain, of prideful lusts, of, “keeping up with the Jones,” that we not only lose sight of the purity of the pursuit of God, but begin to believe that it is not necessary or important. We must detach, we must let go of worthless ambition in favor of the will of God. Life can not be made gradable based on the desires of our own wicked hearts. The only basis of success in this life is the acceptance of God’s grace for the next life. The 6 word phrase, “Well done good and faithful servant…” must be the goal. To hear Jesus speak these words as we enter eternity is the greatest reward we can ever hope to have laid to our accounts.
We must not only detach, but we must return. There are many who daily make God out to be a liar by the denial of His truth in the Bible. We seem to live as though we are the supreme rulers in the universe and that we are all basically good. Our premise is that we start with perfect scores and as long as we don’t lose too many points going through this life, we’ll end up OK. This is Humanism! Not only that, but it isn’t true. We all start out life being desperately wicked, totally depraved, restrained from the most base perversions only by the Grace of God. Only when we decide that God is perfect and wants the best for us, when we bend the knee to His Word, when we surrender our passion for His; then we can have the surety of one bound for Heaven and eternal fellowship with Christ. We must detach from the lies we WANT to believe and learn to return to the belief that we WANT to believe are lies.
None of us want to believe that we are, what God’s Word tells us we are. We would like to believe the Bible is a collection of lies, because it would allow us to think more highly of ourselves, but it isn’t the truth. Regardless of how badly we want a lie to be true, or the truth to be a lie, is just isn’t so. The truth is the truth, always, everywhere and for everyone, and a lie is always a lie.
It’s alright though, there is a way out of our predicament; we are what God tells us we are, after all He made us, and who could know the creation better than the creator? God has set up the best give-away ever. “Step right up and get your entry in eternity! The sweepstakes begins! Everyone who will detach and return the entry is a guaranteed WINNER! This is an important notice, THE MOST IMPORTANT NOTICE you will ever receive. You are APPROVED FOR THE ONE FREE GIFT that will guarantee your eternal destiny and that GIFT STATUS IS PENDING! DETACH AND RETURN to the God that made you, through the Son who died for you. There are actually more benefits rolled up in this one gift than time and space allows for us to enumerate.”
No death, no pain, no tears, streets of gold, a mansion built just for you, the choicest foods, never an unfulfilled want… all can be yours! The entry forms are all mailed out and everyone receives one. Will you send yours in today? This minute? Don’t delay, entries must be received before the end of your life. Decisions made after the deadline will not be honored and will be considered null and void. Every valid entry is a winner and you will not only receive all the benefits listed here, (and more), in eternity; you will also be given a new start in this mortal life allowing your testimony to shine as an example of a child of God living…
All for the Glory of Christ
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PS. Thank you for reading this article. I said that I had an important announcement that I had to wait to share with you. This link, “ANNOUNCEMENT,” will take you to a page that will explain what’s new in my fundamental world. Thanks again and God Bless.