Gift

"Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, "Who then can be saved?" Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

 ---

Altar call as a journey - raising your hand doesn't mean I'M HOLY NOW. I'VE GOT NO SINFUL DESIRE. But maybe that'll happen, who knows? But it probably doesn't happen very often. It didn't happen to me anyway, or any of the other Christians I know. I think, one purpose it serves is as a symbol. It's a declaration of faith. A way to delineate your old life from the new, something that you can point to and say - my recovery began there. The prodigal son was at the pig trough but there was a specific point in time where he made that conscious decision to go back. To leave all that behind. That's the pivot, the turning point. That's what the altar call offers. It's not a 'poof I'm Christian now, case closed' kind of thing, it's the beginning of a journey. He still had to walk to get to his father's house. But what I love about it is that, it says - while he was still a long way off, his father went running to him and embraced him. We don't have to battle our way up mount olympus, or prove to God that we're worthy of His love. All we have to do is make that decision, and take the first few steps in the right direction. God will go the rest of the way. I think there are two reasons for this. Firstly, it's because of how much He loves us. Why else would a father abandon all decorum and the almighty I-told-you-so? He didn't have to run to his son. He had every right to stand there and watch smugly as the son is made to grovel and beg for a place among his servants. But instead he says, "Bring the fatted calf and kill it. Let us feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again! He was lost and is found!" He was simply overwhelmed by the joy of seeing his treacherous son again.

But I think the second reason is because He knows it's impossible for us to do it ourselves. The disciples spent months with Jesus Christ, witnessing miracles, walking, eating, sleeping, breathing next to the living Christ - and still right up till his death, they doubted he was the son of God. John 6:36 says: 'But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe.' How then are we, who have never met him or even seen his face, supposed to believe? That's why Paul says faith isn't something you earn or achieve. It's a gift.

---

"I think the humility comes from accepting that, if i'm honest with myself, like brutally honest - I'm not that special. You know? I'm not an alright guy. I'm not as decent as I'd like everyone to believe - but then you remember, that if God loves me, the maker of heaven and earth, then maybe I'm not so bad after all. Maybe, you know, He knows something that I don't. Maybe there's something here worth loving."

 ---

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast.

Ephesians 2:8-9