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It is always startling when one of my children calls me by my first name. The sound of their tiny voices, saying the word "Jessalyn" or the more familiar "Jess" catches me off guard. They've only recently begun to experiment with names in this way as they've only recently begun to understand that their mommy and daddy have proper names just like they do.
Of course, as they've dipped their toes into the exciting waters of proper name usage, we've had to remind them that they are not to call us by our first names, they are to continue calling us Mommy and Daddy. "But everyone else gets to call you Jess!" my middle son pleads.
Just a few days ago I wrote, "I cannot allow myself to create imaginary hurdles before those who are lost when God has created a simple and easy means of salvation."
The words still echo in my mind.
I wonder in the depths of my soul: is it really so easy to be saved? is it really so simple?
For our means of salvation was not in the least bit easy or simple for Jesus.
It was not with a word or with a look that Jesus accomplished the salvation of man. It was with pain, humiliation, and death.
Indeed, as our holy God voluntarily stretched out his arms and feet to be nailed to beams of wood, and as he hung there, voluntarily suffocating in his own lung fluid, I'm certain it never once felt easy or simple to him.
And as the eternal Son of God experienced his Father's complete withdrawal of affections and in their place appeared the full, horrifying wrath of the Holy One against sin, our spotless lamb accomplished the most complex and difficult thing imaginable: the work of atoning for his people's sins and bridging a chasm of infinite width between God and man.
Here we have a marvelously simple and straightforward explanation of what it means to become a Christian: you must call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Just call.
For belief in Jesus is not a work, it is a recognition of need.
There is an interesting story in the book of Numbers that Jesus uses to illustrate the simplicity of saving faith. It is a story of the ungrateful, complaining, and quarrelsome Israel, just brought out from their slavery in Egypt, just saved from the sword of Pharaoh, and just released from their chains of torment.
But they were not happy with their gracious and loving God who had so recently walked them through the Red Sea on dry ground. Their new life didn't suit their suddenly high standards. Apparently, freedom was not all that they had hoped it would be. Yes, God miraculously provided food for them from heaven - food meant to perfectly sustain them on their journey to the promised land, but it was not good enough. They would have preferred the food they ate as slaves. Or so they complained.
The stack of books on my nightstand inches higher everyday. Some were recommended and loaned by friends, some borrowed from the library, and some sit caked in dust because I’ve put off reading them for so long. The majority of the stack, however, have scraps of paper jutting out from their pages–evidence that I’ve started reading them but never quite finished. They remain on my nightstand because I have this thing about finishing books: I want to give each book a fair shake, and reading just the first few chapters isn’t a fair shake in my opinion. The first few chapters don’t tell the whole story.
I suppose I have this thing about whole stories, because although I became a Christian when I was eight, for the 20 years that followed I only knew the first half of the gospel story. I knew that I was a sinner, and I knew that Jesus Christ died on the cross to forgive me of that sin when I confessed Him as my Savior, but I didn’t know how this act of death and resurrection affected my life after my initial salvation. I hated that I continued to sin, that I failed God, that I couldn’t be good enough to prove my worth for what He’d done for me. I knew He loved me at the cross, but I felt certain He couldn’t love me in my ever-present state of failure and weakness. So I repeatedly cycled around to the first half of the story–the part that told me I was a sinner–and then, wallowing in that truth, tried desperately to make up for my imperfections with good behavior.
I thought that was the whole story: saved by grace, sanctified by self-effort. But one day God began showing me through His Word that there is a second half to the gospel story–the part about life after salvation–and what He showed me changed everything.
During a recent family get-together, I was sitting in my grandmother’s guest room rocking my baby girl in silence. As I swayed gently in a rocking chair, admiring my sweet Roseveare, my mind flipped through the many memories I have of nights spent within that room's four walls. Much about the room has changed since my childhood, but the feelings of comfort that have so long characterized my grandmother’s home were just as potent that night as they were decades ago.
A particularly memory rose to the top of this marvelous flood of nostalgia. I remembered sitting on the once plush, white carpet before me as a young girl painting my nails a bright red. As little girls are prone to do, I accidentally spilled the bottle of nail polish. The glaringly red hue seeped into my grandparent’s carpet and great tears of fear began to seep from my eyes. I tried desperately to get as much of the polish out of the carpet’s fibers myself, but it was of no use.
Through great sobs of fear, I explained to my grandmother what had happened. Of course I felt terrible about what I had done, but more than anything my little girl heart was so afraid of her being mad at me for messing up her floor. After all, she was a particularly neat and tidy grandmother.
In my fear, I forgot who my grandmother was. I worried that she would be angry with me and that her opinion of me would be forever altered due to this accident. I didn’t trust that she loved me infinitely more than her white carpet.
There are two kinds of God's sovereignty that are difficult for our human minds to grasp. The first is his sovereignty over the big, terrible events of our lives. This is because we cannot understand how a good and loving God could possibly be orchestrating the devastating, debilitating, and often deadly circumstances that we find ourselves subject to as humans living in this sin-infested world.
Indeed, we are often met with a crisis of faith when a spouse leaves us, when a pregnancy ends in miscarriage, or when we get the awful news that we are dying from cancer. In these times we are forced to decide whether we truly believe in the God of the Bible--a God who is incomprehensibly sovereign over evil events and at the same time good in all he does--or wether we will invent a more palatable god of our own design. When catastrophic events happen in our lives we must trust--with God-given faith--his revealed Word when it says that he "works all things for the good of those who love him."
The second category of God's sovereignty that I believe we have difficulty accepting--that I see my own heart struggling to believe--is his control over the minute, tiny details of our lives. This, perhaps, is an even greater struggle than the first because it confronts us every moment of our lives. It is the unbelief that continually fails to recognize God's continual, purposeful interaction with the moments that make up our days...
“Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.” (John 11:11)
There are few things as final as death. This horrid thief of breath is a common enemy every human must face and ultimately surrender to. There is no potion, no surgery, and no vitamin that will delay the inevitable failing of our bodies. And so each of us will one day have to say painful goodbyes to our spouses, our parents, and our children. There is only one Man who has ever faced the enemy of death and emerged from the battle field victorious and he holds the sun and moon and stars in the palm of his hand...