Following every glittering testimony of faith from one raised in a stable Christian home- learning at an earthly father’s knee to love The Heavenly Father, happily participating in church life with the family, knowing a lifetime of Christian heritage- is a chorus of genuine amens and hearty hallelujahs! And rightly so!
But for many hearers, there’s a whispered, “please Lord, let that be my kid’s witness someday, since it will never be mine.” There are those thinking of when they were children and rode the church bus alone every Sunday- and still are the only professing Christians in their families. Many are remembering regular family participation in church- punctuated by long days and nights of familial dysfunction. Many have no memory of attending church as a child. Due to the troublesome vines continuously trying to choke it to death, some folks may not be able to distinguish the branches of their family tree.
The Good News is: If you have kissed a hundred frogs and not one of them turned into royalty, if you are sleeping with pigs and slapping off flies, if you do not know your earthly father- much less your heavenly one, if you are running hard and fast from pain- afraid to slow down and catch your breath; there’s a GOD in heaven who made you, who loves you- and if you seek Him- you’ll find He was willing to take human form and die to redeem you from your natural sinful state and your proclivity to sin.
Sin has many natural consequences. Some are merely difficult, others are horrid. Most important however, is the ultimate price of our sin: It is spiritual death and eternal separation from GOD, and from all that is good and pure. Good tidings of great joy: Jesus Christ has come to buy back his own from the dark side! GOD in The Son of God has paid in full for our offenses toward Him and for the harm we have done others!
Now, respectfully, before all you precious theologians on every side of the many fences we’ve built prepare to take me to task- I thoughtfully read the book, too. The Book says, if anyone wants GOD it is an act of His sovereign grace in that one’s life. It says, if anyone is willing to trust in and sincerely believes on Jesus Christ, The Only Begotten Son of God, for personal salvation from sin it is an act of sovereign grace. And if anyone consistently, yet imperfectly, displays the fruits of salvation and of The Indwelling of The Holy Spirit it is an act of sovereign grace. And if anyone genuinely wants GOD he or she is elect. And if anyone chooses GOD it is because GOD CHOSE first. It says, there is not one thing, NO NOT ONE, that any of us lowly humans can do to better ourselves and our position before A HOLY GOD. We can not even WANT God on our own. We cannot be WILLING to obey on our own. There is not one tiny work we can do without God either to save ourselves or to keep ourselves saved. Everything is ALL of GOD and everything is owed to Him. Justified- sanctified- glorified, ALL OF HIM! By Him, for Him, and through Him, ALL things came to be, and are coming to be, and will be, and are held together. These things are in the book. These things are in His Word.
Therefore, if you are one with a less than sparkling legacy and you truly want God, you will simply look to Him, as did the thief on the cross that solemn day long ago on Calvary’s Hill, and you will be saved! Then, you will go find your new brothers and sisters! You will link arms with them and in the power of The Holy Spirit, embrace the struggle against sin! You will go and celebrate the victory that was hard-won for you! Merry Christmas And A Shiny New Year!
Copyright 2023. L. L. Shelton.