Friday, July 29, 2005
It may have been the scariest moment of my life. I was only ten years old, but I remember it like it was yesterday. I was with my friends in Lake Michigan. We started out just wading, but they kept getting deeper - until the lake bottom dropped off sharply. My buddies started swimming. I didn't know how, and I was too embarrassed to tell them. And I started taking on water fast. I went under once, I went under twice, and I was desperately thrashing around. As for my buddies, they thought I was just clowning around. Can you imagine me clowning around? Well, I was drinking the lake. I can see that water burying me there like it was yesterday, and honestly, I was almost a goner. And then he came - the man from the shore who saw my predicament and he jumped in to do something about it. He had come to rescue me. I grabbed him with both hands. I hung onto him as if he were my only hope. He was.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "One Hand Short of Heaven."
As I've studied the Bible, I've learned that what happened to me that day at the lake is a picture of another life-or-death situation and the rescue on which a life depends. In this case, the life-or-death situation involves the entire human race. It's about you.
The Bible reveals our true spiritual condition in hopes that we'll recognize it and take the only action that will save our souls. God's book says, "your sins have separated you from your God" ( Isaiah 59:2) - that we are "without God and without hope in this world" ( Ephesians 2:12) - that we are "dead ... in our sins." Sin is so much more than just breaking somebody's religious rules. It's defying Almighty God by ignoring His rule over our lives and doing what we want instead. It's ultimate arrogance. It's defiant rebellion against the One to whom we owe our existence. And it's all of us; even the most religious person listening today. We differ only in the degree of our rebellion against our Creator, not in the reality of our rebellion or of its awful, eternal consequences.
We are that little guy, drowning, with no hope of saving ourselves. Our only hope of avoiding certain death is a rescuer. And it's at that point that Jesus Christ comes off the pages of the history books and becomes a deeply personal issue for you and me. He saw we were dying, He left heaven's shore, He jumped into save us at the cost of His own life when He gave His life in exchange for ours on a cross.
Our word for today from the Word of God, John 3:18, spells out the difference between those who will be lost and those who will be rescued: "Whoever believes in Him (that's Jesus) is not condemned, but whoever does not believe in Him stands condemned already because He does not believe in the name of God's one and only Son."
It isn't what you do with some religion or some set of beliefs. It all comes down to what you do with Jesus - whether or not you believe in Him. In the original Greek word that's translated as "believe," it means to put your total trust in Jesus, to hold onto Him like a drowning person would hang onto his rescuer. And take it from me, that means holding onto Him with both hands.
Some people miss Him because they try to grab Jesus with just one hand - because there's something else in the other hand they don't want to let go of. A sin they don't want to forsake, a person, a pleasure, an escape from their problems. But that's what the Bible calls "another god." And you can't hold Jesus with one hand and some junk He died for in the other. Believing in Jesus is grabbing Him with both hands, turning from, abandoning whatever else has been your hope. Could it be you've tried to turn to Jesus without turning from your sin, your other hope? It's got to be a two-hand faith, grabbing Jesus with all your heart and both your hands.
If you've never taken that life-saving step - and you know it's time - then tell Him that right now. He's come to where you are, reaching for you with both hands - both nail-scarred hands. It's time you grabbed Him with both of yours. This step is so important that I wrote a little booklet about it called Yours For Life, which I want to send to you if you want it. You can ask for it without any obligation by going to our website at yoursforlife.net or by calling us toll-free at 1-877-741-1200.
Grabbing Jesus with one hand or with both hands - it's the difference between being saved and being lost.