So I’m a Christian. Now what? Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior, poured out His own precious blood and died on the cross to save me. I have felt the depth and power of that indescribable love, and having felt it, the only possible response was to love Him back with every last crumb and particle of devotion that my weak human heart could muster. I have given my life to Jesus Christ- or, more accurately, I have acknowledged His ownership, since He gave me that life to begin with and then bought it back at the cost of His own. I recognize myself as the Prodigal Son, and having returned to my Father at last, I have been greeted, kissed, feasted, celebrated over, and showered with love by the One who waited patiently all those wasted years and never gave up on me. Like most Christians, I love the parable of the Prodigal Son. We cling to it as the perfect picture of God’s grace, and it is. Both God the Father and our Savior, Jesus Christ, love us unconditionally in a way that is truly beyond the realm of human comprehension. I am not speculating on this point or rehashing standard Christian teachings- I have been privileged to feel that love. My Lord once accompanied me to a benefit concert at my church, and as the event organizer read aloud a friend’s witness testimony, I felt a rush of indescribable joy surge through every cell of my body. My Lord was remembering the moment that another Prodigal Son had come home to Him, and had graciously chosen to share with me the absolute elation He felt at the memory. I remember glancing up at the cross in the front of the sanctuary (a rather large and realistic-looking one), and mentally comparing the horror that it represented with the perfect joy I was feeling from the One who had died on that cross, and I realized for the first time that He truly had no regrets, and would do it all again in a heartbeat if it meant saving even one of His precious children. That was the moment that I gave my heart to Jesus Christ, and dedicated my life to bringing Him that kind of joy again and again. By His grace and with His help, I hope to send many more Prodigal Sons and Daughters His way, and I know that He will welcome them all with open arms and a heart bursting with love! But what happens when the feast is over, the fatted calf eaten, the wine drunk, and the guests gone home? What happens the next day, when everybody gets over their hangovers and goes back to work? The Prodigal Son, as far as anyone knows, is still a wastrel and a drunkard, and has cost his Father a third of His estate. What does the Father do with him now? Perhaps the more meaningful question would be, what should the Prodigal Son do to thank His Father for such undeserved grace? This is where many of us Christians get off the bus. It’s so easy to take what we like from the teachings of Jesus and leave what makes us uncomfortable or requires effort. We love the fact that our Lord loves us unconditionally and forgives us for anything, but all too often we conveniently forget the responsibility that goes with that forgiveness. We deserved to die for our sins, but because of Their great love for us, Father and Son agreed to spare us, through the sacrifice of the Son’s perfectly sinless life. We cannot possibly calculate the true cost of our salvation, or understand the anguish suffered by both Father and Son for our sake. All we can do is accept the terms of the covenant offered to us, and spend our lives paying the debt of love and gratitude that we owe the Authors of that covenant. “Oh, so salvation comes at a price?”, you ask. “But I thought God’s grace was a free gift!” You’re right, it is. Jesus Christ never asked your permission to die on the cross for your sins, and He loves you whether you love Him or not. His blood is the ultimate fountain of youth…all you have to do is believe it, and you live forever. But honestly, should mere eternal life be the highest aspiration of a true Christian? Precious and beautiful as it is, it is hardly the only prize offered by our abundantly generous Lord. In fact, in the race of the Christian life, eternal existence could almost be compared to a participation medal. If you’re willing to settle for that, that’s between you and the Lord, and I’ve got no right to judge you. But I will ask you this: if you don’t want the gold medal, why enter the race at all? When we accept Christ’s blood as payment for our sins, we become forever indebted to Him. But instead of accepting payment Himself, our Lord asks us to “pay it forward” to His other children. Paul recognized this; he described it to the Romans as a debt of love for others that could never be repaid, and reiterated the single most important teaching of Jesus Christ’s entire ministry: that love for others fulfills every requirement of God’s holy law. Jesus lived that message every moment of His life on earth, and He did it to provide us with an example to follow. How well are we Christians following our Lord’s example today? Take a look at the world through His eyes, and see if you like the answer. We pass our churches’ empty collection plates, then rush right out to buy the new iPhone. We stay home and watch sitcoms instead of visiting a friend in the hospital. We gripe about how bad our government is, but don’t even vote, much less give any time or money to find, support, or become candidates with the heart of Christ. We sit with the same friends in church every Sunday (when we bother to show up), and never reach out to the newbie sitting alone in the back pew. We judge each other, criticize each other, ignore each other and the God who loves us, and spend more time arguing about which denomination of Christianity is the best than we do welcoming outsiders to the love of our blessed Savior. If we truly are the Body of Christ, then Christ must be feeling awfully sick. Now, can we all be Pauls and Peters and Mother Theresas? Of course not, and our Lord doesn’t expect that from us. But if we move past the Prodigal Son for a moment, we can learn a lesson about His expectations from the parable of the talents. Depending on your Bible translation, you may know this as the parable of the bags of gold or something else like that, because a “talent” was a unit of weight (about 75 pounds) often applied to precious metals in Biblical times. Just a quick review: a rich man getting ready to leave on a long journey entrusts three of his servants with various amounts of money, distributed according to their abilities. When he comes back some time later, two of his servants have doubled their respective amounts through wise investing, and are promptly rewarded for their efforts. The third servant had buried the money for safekeeping, and returns only the original amount to his master, who punishes him severely. Like the servants in the parable, each of us has received “talents” from God, and we are responsible to use them for the good of His Kingdom on earth. We are speakers, writers, teachers, healers, financiers, organizers, encouragers, worship-leaders, watchmen…the list goes on and on. Some of us have been blessed with many gifts, while others of us have only a few. But every one of us has been given the most precious gift of all: the love and grace of God, through the blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ, His Son. Even the most financially impoverished among us can afford to share this priceless gift with others, and that is the only kind of investing that our Savior cares about. How do you think He would respond if He returned today, and found that most of us have buried His grace in the ground? We owe Him a debt that can never be repaid, for the gift He has given us is beyond any price. From those to whom much is given, much will be expected. As the time of His coming approaches, it’s time for us Christians to get up off our couches and start investing our talents for the good of His Kingdom. Do we want to be the lazy servant, whom the Master threw out of His sight in anger? Or do we want to be the two faithful servants, who pleased their Master and got to enjoy another great feast of celebration with Him? The choice is, and always has been, ours. Eternal life is not enough- even the weepers and teeth-gnashers get that! Personally, I want much more than to live forever- I want to spend forever sharing in the joy of my beloved Lord. That means a lot of hard work and discipline in this life…but if it brings Him even one moment of happiness like the one He shared with me, it will be well worth it, for both of us. So how do you want to spend forever? Existing…or living? The feast is over. Time to get to work.
Posted on: Wed, 08 Oct 2014 06:59:52 +0000