In What We Trust?

I read the first part of 1 Samuel 4 tonight. An interesting story there about a boneheaded decision the Israelites made. Don't get me wrong, I'm not overly knocking them -- I make plenty of boneheaded decisions all the time. I'm sure you do too!

Here's what went down. The Philistines and the Israelites are fighting. The Philistines are winning. So the Israelites come up with this brilliant plan -- bring up the ark of the covenant from Shiloh to the camp, thinking that will make things go well.

Uh oh. Bad idea.

The short story is the Israelites get pummeled, get the ark captured, and the two wicked priests, Eli's sons, ended up dead.

What did they trust in? A box with the Lord's commandments, a staff, and some manna in it. That's not going to do a whole lot. Yeah, its some really neat stuff in there, but dudes, its still just stuff!

That got me to thinking. What kind of bogus objects of trust do we as people have for our salvation?

"We're Methodists." Or Baptists, or Presbyterians, or Lutherans, or Whateverans. "Oh really? What's a Methodist?" "I don't know, but my family, we're Methodists." Yeah, sorry, that won't cut it. The Jews back in the day tried this with "We're Abraham's descendants." Same thing, different time, same result.

"I go to church." You know I asked one of Novalee's former teachers if she knew Jesus before. She said she went to church, if that's what I'm asking. No lady, that's not what I was asking! Going to church and knowing Jesus Christ are two different things. If you know Jesus, yes, you should go to church -- for a number of reasons. But there are plenty of seats taken up in churches today by a bunch of people who don't know Jesus Christ. That's fine too, we want people to come in the doors, hear the Word, and get saved -- but the problem is when people think they're saved just because they show up. No deal.

"I got baptized." Yeah really? When you were a baby or an adult? I'm guessing the former -- not that it matters, since baptism is an outward symbol of an inside change. There isn't some magical life saving water you can sprinkle on or get dunked in to save you from hell. There is only the living water, Jesus Christ.

"I believe in God." Well, you believe in A god. Do you believe in the one true living God, the God of the Bible? The God who made this whole universe and sent his Son Jesus Christ to die on a cross as payment for our sins, because there is no way we could bridge the gap between him and us ourselves? That God? If that's the God you believe in and love, awesome. If you believe in some abstract concept of God like I once did, or believe in a god different than the one revealed in the pages of scripture, you believe in nothing -- worse than nothing even, because you lie to yourself.

"I'm a good person." We could spend a while on this, but I don't want to. The short answer of what the Bible teaches on this is, no, you're not. Period. Ain't none of us good. Jesus said the only one that is good is God. Funny thing about that. Jesus is God, and Jesus is good. Anyway, since none of us are good, guess what? None of us are going to heaven because of our "good works" either!

I'm sure this list could go on, but this post is getting quite long already. The point here is, trust Jesus Christ for your salvation. That he died on a cross to pay the price for your sins. You can't pay that price, ever. You come to Christ with that drilled into your heart, he'll do the rest regarding whatever other junk in your life needs some fixing. Real stuff. That deep down sometimes scary spiritual stuff. He'll also give you stuff to do to further his kingdom and point people to him.. It's awesome!


Grace and Peace friends.