Have you ever considered how often we “save” something daily?
We save information in our heads.
We save files on our computers.
We save our games.
We save our favorite program.
And we save (or rescue) people or animals in need.
Many more instances of where and when we use save are too innumerable to count. It’s stored somewhere in The Cloud.
As soon as I complete this blog, I will hit the save button, and everything I have typed will be retrievable somewhere so others can read it later.
But I also can choose not to save something.
I can delete it, forgo the opportunity to save my file, or delete the information I’ve heard or something someone has shared with me.
I have the power of choice.
It is the same with salvation.
We make a choice.
When the Holy Spirit convicted me of my sins in a church revival one summer many years ago, I had a choice.
I could get up from my seat, walk down the aisle to the altar, get on my knees, accept Jesus into my heart, or ignore it. Delete the feelings of conviction and leave His gift behind.
The choice was mine to make. I chose to get up and get down on my knees. I decided on the “saved” button.
Please don’t assume I am belittling the crucifixion of Jesus by comparing it to a button. It isn’t that at all. How many opportunities for salvation do we get? Or to witness to someone else?
Not too long ago, I read a story about a photojournalist taking pictures of Africa’s famine and the people starving there. He photographed a starving child dying in the desert as vultures waited for the child to die. He did nothing to help that child. He chose not to save her. Months later, he killed himself.
No one knows if it was because of the haunting picture of that child and the vultures or because he did nothing.
So we have a choice- we all have a choice.
We accept salvation through the precious blood of Jesus, or we can ignore it and walk away. It might haunt us, the Holy Spirit may pursue us (or not), and we may think upon that moment for years to come. Yet we know we had – and have – a choice. I can choose the “saved” button, or I can choose not to. It isn’t complicated, and any pastor or preacher that makes salvation difficult isn’t doing their job.
Your pastor can tell you you can get to Heaven by being a good person.
People can say you have to work your way to Heaven or follow manufactured rules, like marrying many partners and having hoards of children.
Nowhere in the Bible does it say that. There is only one way into Heaven:
“Jesus said to him, I am the Way and the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father, except by (through) Me.” John 14:6
There is no other way, and those who say there are many ways to Heaven do not know Jesus. They see the world and what the world believes to be true.
Save or don’t save- the choice is yours. But the decision is an eternal one.
In eternity, if you end up in hell, your decision not to accept salvation will haunt you.
“For God so loved the greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He (even) gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge (to reject, to condemn, to pass sentence on) the world, but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him.” John 3:16, 17.
Be saved through the blood of Jesus.
Acknowledge you are a sinner and acknowledge your need for Jesus.
Confess your sins. Believe Jesus died for you and that He rose again. Believe Jesus sits at the right hand of the throne of God.
Jesus loves you.
Save yourself from an eternity of misery.
Accept the precious gift Jesus offers.
Save.