Are You In?

Posted by Russ Mathis on Jul 31, 2009 in Daily Bread | 1 comment

Ponce de Leon was correct. There is a fountain of youth. It is found in the fountain of Truth that flows into the baptismal pools of forgiveness, redemption, salvation and eternal life. Much of the Bible, for my simple mind, is a conundrum wrapped in a riddle. Not so with John 3:16-17. Jesus says the choice is simple. Do you believe or not? Are you in or out? There is no gray area. It makes no difference how you define “is”. I can’t have one foot in the Jordan river and one foot in a cess pool and expect to walk with God. Thoreau writes ” If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears , however measured or far away.” That speaks to my heart. We all take a different path to the Divine Father-Mother. Who cares how we arrive? Must we take a conventional path? What is conventional? God is only concerned with one basic question; Are you in? Forget all the philosophical doublespeak. Are you in?

Albert Schweitzer writes “A great cathedral may help to awaken the human spirit, but it cannot create it. Each man, in a very real sense, carries his cathedral inside him.” And so we all view the world through the prism of our own stained glass… stained by our sin and cleansed by the blood of Jesus. Only by the merciful Grace of God, without condemnation, I am accepted and forgiven….

“Just as I am, though tossed about,
with many a conflict, many a doubt,
fightings and fears within, without,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.”

I’m in.