By Pastor Vinnie Cappetta
12/16/2019
Committed
I surprised my girlfriend with a romantic date. We visited different locations around my region each with a body of water. At each stop, I floated a different toy boat on the water for her. In each boat, was a short poem expressing my thoughts and feelings about her. Little did I know that my romantic plans would be sabotaged at the last spot by swimmers who decided to take refuge from the heat of the day at the waterfalls clearly marked as a “non swimming area.” Altering my plans, I followed the trail map to a smaller waterfall. Unfortunately, we could not find the said waterfall, so we ventured off the path to a place where we heard the sound of rushing water. Sure enough it was a tiny waterfall, so I placed the last boat and gave her a card which informed her that I wanted to be her shipmate forever. In other words, I wanted to marry her. That was a defining moment for a life-long commitment to my wife.
Salvation is also meant to be a life-long commitment, but in this case, it is a commitment to the person of Jesus Christ. We distort the gospel when we see it as simply saying a prayer to get us out of hell and into heaven. There is so much more to the good news of Jesus then saying a prayer. If we think that trusting Christ is like crossing the finish line, we have totally mistaken the essence of the gospel. Salvation is more of a starting line than a finish line.
Genesis 5:22-24
After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years. Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.
Enoch walked with God and was not because God took him. This man began a relationship with his God and didn’t stop there. He continually grew in his knowledge of God to the point where God enjoyed his company so much that he took him home to heaven before he even died. This is a wonderful picture of what will happen to us when Jesus comes back to get us. But it is also an illustration of how we should view our redemption and subsequent walk with God. As Enoch, we need to see our friendship with God as an increasing commitment on our part. This increased commitment should be exhibited in our everyday actions. These actions will not get us to heaven…only faith in Christ can do that. But our everyday actions should be viewed as a preparation for living forever with God someday. If we don’t enjoy God’s presence now, how can we say that we want to enjoy it for eternity?
