“Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3)
The story is told about a young child who prayed to ask Jesus to come and live in his heart during Sunday School. When he saw his mother, he proudly told her, “Mama, I asked Jesus to come and live in my heart today and take my skin away”.
His mother chuckled but later realized that her young child was serious. Several days later, he confided his concern to her. “I’ve been waiting, Mama, and I still have my skin.”
You can’t help but smile. But the illustration points to the child-like faith that Jesus suggests we need to have to come to a saving knowledge of him.
I distinctly remember my own doubt as I weighed my decision to accept Christ. I was not a child, and just like any other adult, I could find any number of reasons to question whether a simple prayer would bring an end to my march to hell. I told my wife, who was my girlfriend at the time, “It can’t be that easy”.
Her reply was ultimately what convinced me to take the child-like step in faith and ask Jesus to come and live in my heart. “What have you go lose if you’re wrong? You will have lived a better life for it.”
We are commissioned to take the Gospel story to the rest of the world. In doing so, it’s important to remember that adults will often dismiss salvation as too simple. Sin has so complicated their lives that even under conviction, they find it very difficult believing their lives can become free of sin by a simple prayer.
Actually, it is not the prayer that saves them. It is the faith behind it. And the decision to use just a mustard-seed dose of faith with that prayer is the most difficult decision they will ever make. Why? Because it seems childish to believe it will work.
It is also very difficult for people to associate sin with who they are. Most adults believe themselves to be nice people. To most of them, nice is the only criteria necessary to get into heaven. Sin to them is simply things they did that were wrong. It should not define who they are.
The Bible, however, has an altogether different view of sin. The Old Testament verse that comes to mind can be found in Isaiah. “But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags.” (Isaiah 64:6)
Isaiah’s point is we are born to sin. In other words, “nice” doesn’t get you into heaven. Unless and until the sinner views sin as something he can never personally overcome, he will never see the need for a savior.
This truth was also stressed by Jesus in a very direct exchange with the Pharisees. “For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind.” Then some of the Pharisees who were with him heard these words, and said to him, “Are we blind also”? Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore your sin remains.” (John 9:39-41)
Long story short, sin is a killer. The late Southern Baptist pastor, Adrian Rogers, put it this way: “It’s not the amount of sin. It’s the fact of sin that damns us”.
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