Hebrews 10:26-31
If we give up and turn our backs on
all we’ve learned, all we’ve been given, all the truth we now know, we
repudiate Christ’s sacrifice and are left on our own to face the
Judgment—and a mighty fierce judgment it will be! If the penalty for
breaking the law of Moses is physical death, what do you think will
happen if you turn on God’s Son, spit on the sacrifice that made you
whole, and insult this most gracious Spirit? This is no light matter.
God has warned us that he’ll hold us to account and make us pay. He was
quite explicit: “Vengeance is mine, and I won’t overlook a thing” and
“God will judge his people.” Nobody’s getting by with anything, believe
me.
Scripture quotations
from The Message. © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene
Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress, Colorado Springs, CO. All
rights reserved.
When I was teaching kindergarten, my all-time favorite “film” to share with my students was Marlo Thomas’ production of Free to Be…You and Me.
I had to order it from the Arkansas Department of Education’s film
library, and it was so popular that I sometimes waited all year for our
“turn” to arrive. This “film” is now available on DVD*, and I recently
gave Timothy, Zola and Nathan a copy. The illustrations of presenting a
positive image and being who God called you to be (although Thomas does
not reference God directly), are invaluable.
Thomas included
several stories by a well-known children’s author, Maurice Sendak…such
as “Where the Wild Things Are,” and “Pierre.” The latter story is a
really good lesson for the children in attitude. It begins…”There once
was a boy named Pierre…who only would say, ‘I don’t care!’” Pierre
doesn’t care about anything, and as a result, he ends up being eaten by a
lion! In the end, the lion spits him out, but the adventure that
ensues in the meantime is captivating and instructive!
And so it
is with us as Christians. Too many of us have looked God square in the
eye and said, “I don’t care!” And just as the storybook character’s
choice led to a disastrous result, this sort of attitude will have the
same outcome for us.
Don’t confuse sin with denial. We will
all sin. All who have been saved by the blood of Jesus will need to
stay continually close and repeatedly beg for His forgiveness – because
we are human, and the devil is persistent. But to consciously deny
Jesus…to turn our backs on Him and say, “I’m done with You,” or “I don’t
care!” is to invalidate the incredible sacrifice that He made for each
of us - and God will not stand for this! If you accept salvation
through Jesus Christ and then throw it away…you are discarding
everything…God’s blessings…His forgiveness…and ultimately, the gift of
Eternity in Paradise.
In the last pages of the children’s story,
Pierre decides that he cares greatly! And the lion spits him out, and
all is forgiven. The last line of the book is, “The moral of ‘Pierre’
is…CARE!” The moral of our story is to care…about
Jesus…about His gift of salvation…and about our attitude and our
demonstration of faith to others. Every day, we must let His light
shine through us. We must show God AND the world that we care about
Jesus greatly…and never turn our backs on all that we have learned.
We
are not little boys with bad attitudes…or we shouldn’t be! Are you
showing God and others know how much you care? Don’t you think it’s
time you did?
©2015 Debbie Robus
*
http://www.amazon.com/Free-Be-You-Marlo-Thomas/dp/B0042DN4TU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1434121102&sr=8-1&keywords=free+to+be+you+and+me+dvd
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