While waiting for our pizza this evening at Chucky Cheese I enjoyed watching a four-year-old little boy beat the system. He was playing Skee-ball. Actually the word “playing” isn’t quite the right word. He was picking up the ball, running up the lane and depositing it in the 100,000 point hole. It didn’t take him long to rack up a million points and lots of tickets to spend at the redemption counter. He totally maxed out his full potential. He had a sure thing.
I meet a lot of people filled with anxiety about their eternal future. Mentally healthy people want to live. Eighty or ninety years really aren’t enough. We don’t hit our full mental stride until seventy. If I charged a hundred thousand dollars for a ticket that guaranteed heaven, people would line up from my front door clear to San Francisco. We long for surety. We want a sure thing.
Well I can guarantee you heaven. I really can. I found a sure thing. It’s not based on money or deeds. It is based completely on trust. The following is better than a four-year-old dropping a wooden ball in a Skee-ball hole. Jesus said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.” John 5:24
It’s the surest thing you will ever find on planet earth. Please stop saying, “I hope I will be saved.” We don’t honor God with that kind of talk any more than I would have honored my dad by saying, “I hope you do” after he promised me he would bring me something special.
Written by Roger Bothwell on November 25, 2009
Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574