Monday, April 7, 2008
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It's a good thing that out of our three children, we had only one daughter. I could only afford one wedding! Now my wife did all kinds of resourceful things to keep the costs way down. It was so nice of those guests to bring a sack lunch, I'll tell you. No, no, I'm only kidding. It was modest, but it was beautiful. But it certainly wasn't free! We enjoy watching the video of the wedding once in a while, but we won't have to do the wedding again! Can you imagine if her husband kept saying every few months, "I think we need to have another wedding. I want to make sure we're married." They haven't needed to do that! Neither have her mother and I because we know we got married that day.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "One Solid Beginning."
Now there's no doubt about it, that day in June, I committed my life to my wife many years ago. If you asked me if I'm married to her, what would you think if I answered, "Well, I hope so; I think I'm married. We probably got married to each other somewhere along the way!" You'd probably say, "Ron, if you don't know you made a commitment to her, you didn't!" And you'd be right! It's the same way when it comes to a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Our word for today from the Word of God is a great eternal life insurance policy for someone who's listening, but it's a life-or-death alert for someone else who's listening. John 5:24, "I tell you the truth," Jesus says, "whoever hears my word and believes in Him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life." Man, this is an incredible statement about settling your eternity once and for all. Whoever believes will not be condemned - no fear of God's judgment for your sins, no fear of hell when you die, never condemned!
Notice the finality, it says, "He has crossed from death to life." It's like that day I made my lifetime commitment to my wife. I crossed over - past tense - from single to married. There's either been a time when that change took place, or not. It's the same way with knowing Christ. It's all based on whether or not there's been a time when you consciously believe - that means put all your trust in - Jesus Christ to have your sins erased from God's Book and your judgment cancelled because He took it on the cross.
After a recent meeting where many young people made a public commitment of their lives to Jesus, one young man said to me, "I've done this before. I've done it lots of times." Now, that would be sort of like me telling you that my wife and I have continual weddings to make sure we have a married relationship. The good news is if you've told the Lord you're turning from your sin and pinning all your hopes on Him, you have the relationship. You can quit trying to get it! You have passed over - past tense - it's settled! Satan would love to have you spend the rest of your life wondering whether or not you belong to Jesus so you'll never get on with really living for Him. If you know you've made that lifetime commitment to Him, let's get on with the relationship.
But, as I'm talking about this, maybe you're realizing there's never been a solid definite beginning with Jesus in your life. You may or may not remember a specific time, but you know if there has been a time when you've said, "Jesus, I'm yours." You may have been around Jesus all your life, you've learned tons about Him, you feel good about Him, and maybe even do things for Him, and yet you still may have missed your personal moment at His cross, trusting yourself to the one who is dying there for you. That's equivalent to my dating my wife, getting to know all about her, getting engaged to her, but somehow never having a wedding day.
If there's never been a clear, definite beginning to your relationship with Jesus, why don't you make it this day? Literally in these next few minutes you could cross over from death to life and know you did. See, the issue here is literally life forever or death eternally!
If you want to begin your relationship with Him, that's what our website is for - to encourage you and give you information that will help you do that. Would you visit us at yoursforlife.net? God may have given you this one more opportunity to move from death to life. It's the only opportunity you can really be sure of.