For the many years now that I have been a Christian, many times people have intimated that, “Well, Christianity is good for you …” – in other words, I am weak and I really need God. However, they do not feel like they need the help. Well I must admit that there were times in my life that I took a little offense at a statement like that. I think about those statements now and I have to smile.
You see, the fact is that everyone needs God – there is not a one of us that can do it on our own. I now take a statement such as, “You really need God …” to be a statement of fact and I usually respond by saying, “You’re right! Thank you!”. You see the person making the statement doesn’t know what I have to come to understand (I do usually try to tell them).
When a person accepts Jesus Christ as their Lord and believes that God has raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9, 10), that person according to the scriptures is saved. That person receives eternal life and is assured to be gathered together when Jesus Christ returns. It Is Written that at that moment a person becomes a son or daughter of God and has direct access to God as a loving Father.
This is just a brief list of all that God makes available to anyone who desires to believe – including the person who says they do not need God. Now some well meaning person might ask the question, what if all this is just a story and none of it is true? Now that is a good question. I could go into a list now of all the ways in which God has blessed my family over the past years and how God has taken care of countless lives over the past hundreds of years. However, let me approach this from a different angle.
The Word of God declares that all those who are saved have eternal life and that God is going to send Jesus Christ back for them someday. In the mean time I have the privilege to spend time with wonderful people who love God, their country and their fellow man. People who work to live according to what the Bible says, people who try and live lives of integrity and honesty – in a not so honest and upright world. People who in hard times remind me of the promises of God and not of the problems at hand.
So, let’s for a minute just assume that none of what the Bible says is true. In that case I have absolutely nothing to lose. However, if it is true, I have absolutely everything to gain – now and in the life that is to come. So if you’re the sort that likes good odds, here they are: Nothing to lose and absolutely everything to gain. Wanna bet?