More Than Forgiveness

My mind and heart keep coming back to foundation thoughts. By now, you know that I've been a Believer for over 40 years, but I won't pretend that I've been a particularly devoted Christ-follower for all of that time. For some of it, I've been a lackadaisical Christ-follower. Even worse, there have been times when Christ-following was completely on the back burner, as much out-of-sight, out-of-mind as I could make it. I'm not going to get into my details. You have your own details, and I hope this post will help you get through some of them.

Maybe it's that I'm getting old enough to sometimes remember things from long ago more clearly than I remember things from last week. Failures and foolishness from long ago have been coming up in my quiet moments. Whatever the reason, I see that I need more than forgiveness. 

All or Nothing

With a title like All or Nothing, the theme of this post is obvious. The Lord Jesus Christ, the soon coming King, doesn't want lukewarm followers. He doesn't want  followers who abandon Him when things get rough or who are choked out by the cares of this world. He doesn't want followers who do things in His name but who don't have what He defines as a relationship with Him. And when you think about, this really is about how He sees things and what He wants, isn't it? It's not about Him doing things my way or Him having a relationship with me on my terms. This isn't about the Potter doing what the clay wants, the clay's way. This isn't about Him fitting into my comfort zone; this is about me fitting into His comfort zone. And His comfort zone is quite different from what lazy, rebellious, sinful, self-deceiving humans want it to be.

It's pretty clear. All or nothing.