Mechanical buttons or keys on my computer begin to stick. The malfunction continues and will be repaired or it may be time to change and buy a new computer. The buttons on my shirt get loose. I need to sew them tight or lose them and the use of the shirt. But the Bible always stays the same.
The message of the gospel doesn’t malfunction, become loose, need repair or change. In just a few words the message, Jesus saves you from hell, can be relayed.
Late one night I was speaking with someone on the telephone in a different time zone far away. I was groggy from sleep and not fully awake. I heard myself speaking and knew I wasn’t conveying what I could have expressed if I were fully awake.
There were spurts of clarity and I noticed the difference between the unclear thoughts and the lucid moments. The call was important and somewhat brief so I spoke the best I could.
The next day the late-night conversation ran through my head. Mixed feelings surfaced about how I wasn’t able to articulate the message of my book The Threshold as clearly as I intended to. We pass through time, the doorway of life, like a threshold before going into eternity.
However, I could still hear my encouraging words describing my hope. In my conversation with Clayton, a radio personality in Melbourne, Australia, I mentioned how my heart bleeds for young people in their teens, twenties and thirties.
One of my hopes for writing The Threshold was to expose how Jesus Christ saved me from hell and changed my life for the last 25 years. I did this by writing of the first 36 years of my sinful life. By showing a life of reckless and carnal living I was hoping to spare the young readers the emptiness.
By seeing a life of waywardness without the God of the Bible they could read onward and see how God reshaped my life honoring Him. By comparing a life before and after Jesus, the reader of any age would see the miraculous difference that the grace of God can make.
Clayton and I laughed at the beginning of our conversation when we both realized the awkwardness of different time zones. At the end of our interview, we both prayed for the will of God to work in the hearts and minds of the listeners.
After I recalled the conversation with Clayton I realized how insignificant I was. The messenger isn’t as important as the message, Jesus saves.
John
April 4, 2014 at 11:01 pmHey Mike:
Well said. We certainly can rely upon the unchanging word of God and of Christ himself! Those who put their faith in the unchanging One to save them from their sin certainly can know with clarity that they have been forgiven and saved from eternal damnation. Why? Because Jesus has overcome sin, Satan, and death! His works can never be changed nor can His promises to those who follow Him be changed! They are fixed and permanent and the only thing we can, as humans, rely and count on! Just as God is immutable….so is the salvation Christ has purchased for us by His death and resurrection!
Michael D. Rourke
April 4, 2014 at 11:28 pmYes John, my Brother in the Lord,
Worldwide Christians are being assured of their salvation by grace and built up in their faith. We are the light to the world and like salt we enhance the flavor of life with the truth of God’s message found only in the Bible. The word of God makes our time, in day to day living, a rich and full event of life here on earth and richer still in knowing of the eternal life to come with God in heaven. The blessings of Jesus are for all who come to Him in humble trust. Stepping closer to God you find His open arms of love.