The Missing Step

Different Churches call it different things, but all have certain steps involved in accepting Jesus as your Savior. In the New Testament it generally went something like this:

1) You hear the "Good News."
2) You believe
3) You repent (turn from your sin).
4) You are baptized
5) The Holy Spirit takes up residence inside you.
6) You bear spiritual fruit.

The step that we have trouble with is the same step that the Israelites of the Old Testament had trouble with... #3.

The Jews of the O.T. were always worshipping foreign idols... Probably because they involved fertility rites, and sexual immorality. Just like today, people sought out the old "skin game." Some were physically involved in this, and others just sat back and watched.

We are the Rich of the world and we can afford all sorts of idols. We can afford to worship the god of materialism and its idols of jewelry, clothing, cars, homes, and other possessions. We can afford televisions which allow us to vicariously worship the god of fame and celebrity on something as benign as American Idol. We can also sit back, grab the remote, and worship the god of sexual immorality in drama and comedy... From a distance.

That may be why Jesus said it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for us, the rich, to enter heaven.

And that statement may be why we hear so many sermons today about God's Grace. Rich people don't want to hear about God's Judgement and about how He will not be mocked.

It's that pesky #3.

Still, if we do repent... Put away our idols... And actively seek to change direction... Actively seek first the kingdom of God... Then God's Grace prompts His sweet forgetting of all those times we fail... In spite of our desire and efforts to obey.

That's the good news.