"I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please - not enough to
explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of
warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don't want enough of him to make
me love a foreigner or pick beets with a migrant worker. I want ecstasy,
not transformation; I want the warmth of a womb, not a new birth. I want
a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I'd like to buy $3 worth of God,
please."
That is a lot different than these words by Charles Spurgeon:
"But I now do from my very soul call upon thy name. Trembling, yet believing, I cast myself wholly upon thee, O Lord. I trust the blood and righteousness of thy dear Son...Lord, save me tonight, for Jesus' sake."
Song of the Week
I remember listening to this song by Delirious after I visited Andrew in the hospital (the guy who overdosed). I was driving home and it hit me how beautiful that name would be to a man so close to death because of his own bad choices.
The whole night seemed to illustrate his situation: It was dark out and it was late so hardly anyone was out on the road. Kind of erie and very lonely. Similarly, he was facing the darkest time of his life, alone in that hospital bed to consider how he had gotten to that place, and what he would say to God if he didn't live through the night. And then the words of the song come through - "Jesus, how sweet the name - the name that saves!
I don't know if Andrew was saved or not. He prayed the prayer, but I haven't seen him since. It will be tragic if he rejects the lifeline that Jesus threw to him that night. I can't imagine being more receptive to God than when we are near death! God had his full attention that night.
Then again, Andrew is not that different from any of us, is he? None of us are that far from death. Knowing how sinful we are, how fragile our lives are, and how fragile the circumstances are in which we live our lives (like the economy!), how sweet that Name should be to us. It should make us tremble and yet leap for joy. Makes it kind of hard to imagine just wanting 3$ worth.
1 comment:
James tells us in chapter 4 verse 4 "Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away."
We have such a limited amount of time to find Christ ourselves and share our knowledge of Christ and His Saving Grace as a witness to others!
The sad part of sharing Christ is the number of times you witness people refuse or ignore Christ.
I find myself sometimes reading the obituaries section of the paper on a Sunday afternoon, curious to see if anybody I know has passed away. Several months ago a saw where a childhood friend had died from Cancerat the age of 43, I had not seen this guy in 20 years, but I know the last time I saw him he was a very carnal/worldly young man.
I have thought many times since then, was Randy saved by Christ? I do not know?
I saw a teenage friends mother had passed away a while back, there again I knew she was a worldy person 30+ years ago, how did she die?
If we are out in the world sharing Christ we would experience many more Andrew's!
It still amazes me to this dy how many Christains when you talk to them in detail about their faith, they explain how they are saved and it is not Biblical?
Thanks to 35 years of pastors, preachers, evangelist and churches in soem cases declaring a Gospel that is not true?
A humanistic gospel of prosperity, a Gnostic knowledge Gospel, a Church based Gospel,but not a Biblical Orthodoxed Gospel of Christ Truth.
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