I missed my blog today. I'm sorry. I'll do better next week. Promise.

One of my elders approached me last week and asked if I would consider teaching a class of teenagers. "Sure.  I will teach them.  But will they listen.  That is the question. Will they listen to a 76 year old lady?  It's been twenty years since I worked with that age group."

He promised me that they would.  Personally, I doubt that.  There is an age, somewhere along the way, that older people become invisible.  I remember when I was in my thirties that my mother told me that she missed being a part of "things".  "They drop you," she said.  "They quit asking your opinion.  They don't include you anymore when a decision is being made."

"Who is this 'they' that you are talking about?" I asked her.

"The next generation.  I don't think it is intentional, but when you totter when you walk, or have trouble finding a word, they think you are brain dead, that your opinions and wisdom are outdated."

I told her that she just needed to jump back in and that she had just gotten out of the thick of things, but she said that she had volunteered a number of times.  And now that I am older, I am amazed at how right she was.  In many churches the voice of older people is dismissed.  Contrary to God's word.

I will try to teach teenagers.  Maybe they will listen.  I certainly have something to say.  And stories to back it up.  Everyone loves stories.  I am going to give it a try.  I'll let you know how it turns out.

Deuteronomy 32:7 "Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask you father, and he will show you; your elders, and they will tell you."

Wisdom takes time to obtain.  You don't have very much of it when you are twenty.  Problem is, you think you do.  That makes it hard to listen.  You will never regret listening to the voice of experience.

My friend Jim Long said that when they began unloading the men onto the beach at Normandy, that the ship was too far out.  They were in water over their heads.  And many of the men couldn't swim.  Their equipment was so heavy that they sank to the bottom and many of them drowned without ever reaching shore.  He said he took his equipment off and discarded it and swam to the beach.  There were plenty of packs and guns lying around where men had died.  He picked up what he needed and kept moving.

I can't even imagine doing something like that.  They were so brave.  Where does that kind of courage come from.  Many survivors say it wasn't courage, but fear.  But they did it anyway.

The greatest fear I have ever faced was when a tornado was coming and I was trying to get my children to safety.  But I was not terrified because I knew where safety was, and how to get there.  I am sure you have faced fear as well.  I hate being afraid.  The thing I fear is usually not nearly as bad as the fear itself.  Fear is a terrible emotion.

When I was young I was terrified of water.  I was afraid of drowning.  I'm not afraid anymore.  I was afraid of heights.  I still am.  I feel like I am being sucked over the edge of something.  Visiting the Grand Canyon was especially uncomfortable for me.   I had to back up.  My children thought I was nuts.  I have never been afraid of speaking before the public.  But they say most people are.

Who knows where fear comes from.  I used  to be afraid of dying.  I'm not fearful anymore.  I have reached the point in my life that whatever God wants, I want.  It is a great relief.

Psalms 27:1  "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?"

Psalms 23:4  "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for you are with me; your rod and your staff they comfort me."

People talk about the "steps" to salvation.  And I guess that is as good a way to describe it as any.  You are trying to get somewhere--to God--and are taking steps in that direction.  But really, it is all done for you.  Jesus did it.  The part you have to do is:

Recognize the condition you are in.  It isn't pretty.
Believe that God came to earth to die for your condition.
Repent.  Not just sorry, but ready to change.
Give Christ all rights to your body and soul.  Which is trust.
Know that Jesus rose from the dead.  And you will too.  His blood covers your sin.

There isn't anything you can actually 'do' but surrender your will to God.  He does the rest.

It is Memorial Day and it has been raining all day.  A steady downpour.  We desperately need the rain but it's gloomy and brings back memories of all the young men that I knew in the Marine Corps who died in service for their country.  They were so young.

Once, when I was in France, we took a train and then a cab to Normandy.  I did not realize that most of our young men who died while landing there on D-Day were buried on that spot.  It seemed like there were crosses for miles. All in a row, one after the other.   We were on the cliff looking down at the beach.  The German pillboxes are still on the cliff.  It was a shooting gallery.  I started weeping and couldn't stop.  One of the men in my church made that landing. (Jim Long)  I asked him once, "How did you survive?"  He answered, "By the grace of God.  You couldn't go back to the ship, so you kept running forward. "  And I thought of the poem written by John McCrae in World War I:  (In part…)

In Flanders field the poppies blow,   Between the crosses, row on row…We are the dead.  Short days ago we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow.  Loved and were loved and now we lie in Flanders field.

John 15:13 "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

And Ken is at rest in the fields at Arlington.

People ask me when I was "saved" and to tell you the truth, I don't know.  For some people it is instant.  For me it had a beginning and an end over time.  It began when I answered that voice within and responded in the only way I knew how.  I was moved.  I wanted salvation and so I went forward in a church service and "got it."  I didn't repent because I didn't have anything that I knew of to repent from.  I was only seven or eight years old.

But  I took a step in the right direction.  I responded.  Don't ever stop a child from responding because you don't think they know what they are doing.  I knew what I was doing.  I was answering God's voice.  There is a verse in the Bible where Jesus says:  "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me;  And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand."  St. John 11: 27-28.  I was following the best way I knew how.

I think God "had me" at that point.  I was in his hand.  But I really didn't understand much.   As I grew up, I knew I was missing something.  I decided it was because I really hadn't understood the meaning of Baptism and so I was baptized again.  Dunking me in water again didn't help my condition.

By the time I was twenty three I recognized that I was sinful.  Greedy.  Selfish.  Proud.  Basically I was a Pharisee.  I needed to repent.  God convicted me (again, by the tug in my soul)  I repented.

But still, something was missing.  It took three more years and a dear friend's advice before I finally found peace.  "You don't trust God.  Oh, you do with yourself, but not with Ken or your children.  You think you are in control and if you let go, God will take one of them from you.  You need to give them all back to God and let him decide what is best.  They're his anyway."

I had already lost one child.  And I thought it was God's fault.   She was right.  I didn't trust God.  And that was my final step to salvation.  He had held me in his hand.  No one could pluck me out.

It took weeks and weeks before I worked out just exactly what "Trust in God" would mean in my life.

So if you believe there is a God, you have taken a step of faith.  Now you have  to decide whether you meet his standard, or not.  Obviously you and I do not meet his standard of "good."
Isaiah put it this way:  Isaiah 6:5b "…Woe is me! For I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.  For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts."  And Isaiah realized he had come up short.  "Short of the glory of God" as Paul put it.

You can't earn it.  You can't buy it.  You can't steal it.  You can't attain it.  It has to be a gift.  But a gift with conditions.  Like we read yesterday, "…it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast…"  That defines grace.  You don't deserve it, but God is going to give it to you.

Here are the conditions.  Admit to God that you are sinful, woe is me, undone, unclean and sorry you have hurt him due to your actions.  Sorry is not repentance.  So repentant.  You must repent. Somewhere in the depth of your soul, give it up.  Commit your future to his standard.

God has a plan to redeem you.  It is the sacrificial blood of Jesus Christ.  Jesus said, "Let me die for what they did.  Put their sin on my account."  And God did.  But to us, the most important point  is that he conquered death.  He rose again.  Believing in the resurrection is critical.  It was witnessed by thousands of people.  We want to live again after we die.  We want to be forgiven.  Christ's death makes it possible.  When we stand before God and he says, "You are guilty," Jesus will come and say,
"I've got that covered.  They repented.  They lived for me and not themselves."

And that is where the third part of salvation comes in.  1. Faith,  2. Grace,  3. Good works
If you are truly repentant, you will grow.  Good works are a result of salvation, not a cause.  You can no longer say, "Well, that's the way I am.  I can't help myself."  You can change because you have been given a new spirit.  "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless, I live;  yet not I, but Christ lives in me and the life which I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."  Galations 2:20  He gave himself.  It was a gift.

That's salvation.  He changes you from the inside out.


 

The entire question of salvation centers around three concepts.  Grace, faith and works.  How does a person get there?  What is salvation?  Where does it begin?  Salvation from what?

I love the answer to these questions in Ephesians 2:8-10  " For by grace you are saved through faith; and that is not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:  Not of works, lest any one should boast.   For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them (good works)."

First, we all have a concept of good, and "not good".  Righteous, and unrighteous.  Holy, and evil.  It is all based on knowing good and not doing it.  Or knowing wrong, and choosing wrong.  The core dichotomy is rebellion from the good and attraction to the bad.  We have a character of rebellion against authority.  We have a character of disobedience--if we know the rule.  If we know what the best path is, we sometimes choose not to take it.  God calls it sin.

The Bible says: "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."  Romans 3:23
So in the character of the human soul is a desperate need.  We need to be saved from ourselves.  And obviously, we can't do it.  And all of the good works in the world can't change our basic nature.  We are always one step away from fulfilling our natural character.  We need something.  We need God.

But to find God, you have to believe there is a God.  This is the question of the ages.  You will have to wade through that for yourselves.  But for me, as a scientist, there is no question.  I gave you my credentials when I started writing 370 plus entries ago.  Go back and read that if you want.  The physics, mathematics, biology and statistics all point to a supreme creator.  The great "I am".  The force behind the beginning, or the "big bang" or whatever you choose to call it.

That is faith.  That is where salvation begins.  But that is the first step.  You have to go further than just believing there is a God.   Paul says in his letter to the Romans that we have come short.

Short of what?  Paul answers and says we are short of God's glory.   What exactly is that!!! (Continued)