Two Gifts

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Written by: Don Goulding

You alone are the LORD. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, along with all their multitude of stars, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You impart life to them all, and the multitudes of heaven worship you. (Nehemiah 9:6) 

 
Thump, thump, our cat charged across the floor after an imaginary mouse and I couldn’t repress a grin. It was a comic burst of life from an otherwise inert pet.
 
Thank you, God, for frisky cats. A lot of smiles would disappear from the earth without them.
 
“Ooh, ahh.” A friend peeled swaddling to reveal her newborn baby. The ruby mouth stretched into a yawn all of one inch across. The elixir of life was doubly concentrated in this tiny infant.
 
Hallelujah, thank you, God, for babies. We’d be so much less without them.
 
A spray of water shot from the emerald sea near our boat in Alaska—the exhale of a thirty ton humpback whale. After several breaths, her tail fluke, with a deep vee on the left side, rose then slipped under the surface. The creature returned to a forest of kelp and sardines where she thrives with her calf.
 
God, you didn’t have to create lifeforms in such wild diversity but you did and it is glorious. Thank you for whales that play beneath the waves. I can’t imagine our oceans empty of those mammal cousins.
 
On par with God’s incalculable gift of life was his second gift of reclaimed life. His initial invention was too brilliant to let it go after mankind despoiled it. It’s true that nature lies defaced but the heartbeat yet pounds and Jesus has come with a plan for renewal.
 
My participation in the gift of life doesn’t have to end here. I’m given a window of time to align myself with God’s solution. Cats, new babies, all creation will be remade, very soon. Until then, heaven and earth watch to see if I’ll worship God for his two most mind-boggling gifts—birth and rebirth.
 
Prayer: Blessed Creator, thank you for the gift of life, and for your plan to reclaim it.

 

Run, Don’t Walk

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Written by: Don Goulding

Since all these things are to melt away in this manner, what sort of people must we be, conducting our lives in holiness and godliness, while waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God? Because of this day, the heavens will be burned up and dissolve, and the celestial bodies will melt away in a blaze! But, according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness truly resides. (2 Peter 3:11-13)

I’m angry. The Garden of Eden was snatched out of my hands and I’m left in a sick, broken world. God created me to live in paradise, to see his face and to dance with angels. Instead, my brothers fight, my body hurts and I’m not at home. I’m not where I’m supposed to be. An heir of the Most High King trapped behind enemy lines in a foreign land, that’s what I am.

I can’t direct my outrage at God. He’s not the one who ruptured the world. Fellow humans aren’t my targets either, because I, too, chose sin. Satan might bear the guilt but he only aided and abetted what my wicked nature wanted. Mostly, I’m mad at me, mad at sin, mad at rebellion against Father God.

This place isn’t any kind of permanent home and I won’t accept its dysfunction. I was not made for this fallen existence just as I was not made for hell. I’m angry enough to slap away the sticky paws of temptation and walk out the gate. Jesus said he is the gate and whoever enters through him will be saved. Jesus Christ is the way out of this clinging darkness. I’m running through him and straight for home.

This life is proof enough for me, I don’t need to go to hell for conversion. I’m convinced that self-rule is disastrous, both now and eternally. So I’m committed to the holiness of God and ready for the fire of his wrath against everything that causes sin and all who do evil. The wickedness in my own heart needs to be the first to go and the burning has already begun.

I can’t take life sitting down. I am driven to action. I’m up, shaking off the darkness, rushing toward the gate.

Prayer: Saving Lord Jesus, get me out of here.

Microwaveable Gospel

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Written by: Don Goulding

I tell you the solemn truth, the one who hears my message and believes the one who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned, but has crossed over from death to life. (John 5:24) 

If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. (Luke 9:23)

 

“If you were to die tonight and God were to say to you, ‘Why should I let you into heaven,’ how would you answer him?” I asked a homemaker standing between the columns of her porch in Iowa. I entered her answer on the survey form and droned through my spiel. As I headed up the street, I checked the box indicating another convert had recited the sinner’s prayer. Cha-ching—I thought I heard a deposit go into my heavenly account.

I’m repenting from that naively formulaic approach to evangelism. It degrades people into conquests and ignores the reality that salvation is as much a process as it is an event. I must shun easy open, microwaveable pitches and instead, like Jesus, love others as unique creations. Above all, the Holy Spirit must enter the conversation because salvation is more about the Spirit’s enablement than it is about a prayer I can maneuver others to say.

When he asked about salvation, Nicodemus was told to be born again, the rich young ruler was encouraged to sell everything, the crowd at Pentecost was charged with repentance and baptism, while the Romans had to confess their belief with their mouths. Each response met the converts on their journey, then moved them closer to Jesus.

Hallelujah, I’ve crossed over to salvation. All the work for my pardon is completed by Jesus on the cross. However, I’m also being saved as I carry my own cross of self-denial. Thus, salvation is the bridge that joins Evangelism and Discipleship.

 

Prayer: Rescuer of souls, use me to help others on this same journey I myself am on.

  1. Personalized Love
  2. In Jesus's Name
  3. Glorious Failure

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