The Ditch

 For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.” Luke 19:10

It's been said by many that you cannot truly be saved until you know how lost you are. I think this truth explains why so many who profess to have exercised believing faith in Christ have never really shown forth a transformed life. In the western church, we've been exercising an "easy believism" for a long time now. We invite people to faith in Christ, but what kind of faith and what kind of Christ do we call them to? I think, intentionally or not, we present Jesus as Someone who can be added to our lives in order to make life better, to make us better. Jesus has no interest in making improvements in us. He came to transform us, from the inside out. He came to bring us life out of death. He came to make us new. He came to make us His.

Author and speaker Philip Yancey tells of his early experiences at the Bible College he attended. He considered himself an intellectual, and as he observed his fellow classmates, he came to view them with disdain, seeing them as his inferiors. His disdain grew into contempt, and he withdrew ever further from the life of the school. He was required to be a part of a prayer group, but would never pray, seeing it all as foolishness. Then one day, he did, and as he "prayed," he said he didn't care if people were lost. He didn't care if his fellow students were lost. He didn't even care if he was lost. Others in the prayer group sat in stunned silence, and then Yancey tells of how, in the midst of this horrible "prayer," He thought of the story of the Good Samaritan, where the Samaritan came to the wounded man in the ditch by the side of the road. He relates how he saw himself as the man in the ditch, and he saw Christ as the Good Samaritan. He said that Jesus kept extending His hand to him in order to bring him out of the ditch, and each time, he spit on the face of Christ. This happened several times in the vision, and then, Yancey relates, he was thunderstruck by a truth; he, Yancey, the one who knew more, was more than everyone else, was in fact, the neediest one of all. He saw his own lostness, and in that seeing, also saw his desperate need to be "found." And so he was, as he took the hand of Christ, and was lifted out of the ditch.

I doubt that most who've had a true conversion experience have had one so vivid as that, but, in some way and at some point, we all must realize that we are the ones in the ditch. We are each the neediest ones of all. Not realizing or admitting that will always result in our being what my first pastor used to call, "being about half-saved." And being half-saved is no better than being unsaved.

So many professing believers are so casual about their faith. They're casual in their worship and devotion. James Robison said that we don't value the things we say we value, and this may be true as concerns salvation more than anything else. We don't really understand the extent of our lostness, the extent of the horror of sin, and the extent Jesus Christ went to offer us salvation. Such is the devastation of sin that the only remedy for it was for the only Son of God to come and take sin and its awful penalty upon Himself. To take on the sin of the world, mine and yours, and let the judgement of God fall upon Him as He bore it. There was no other way, and it was His perfect love that took Him to the cross. How can we be casual about that? How can we so cheapen the work of the cross? How can we invite people into that easy believism when He paid such a terrible price for our freedom?

Because of the sin that permeates this fallen world, we are all born into that ditch. We cannot get ourselves out. Only by taking the hand of Christ, in believing faith, can we be lifted out. Until we see that we are the one in the ditch, we will, in one form or another, "spit in His face," as He reaches out to us. I know we hate that comparison, but it's real. Have you ever seen yourself as the one in the ditch? Or, have you believed yourself to be a basically good person that He can make even better. If so, you'll remain in the ditch. But when you realize that you, like me, like all of us, are the neediest one of all, then you can be lifted up to His life. Free of the ditch, and free of the penalty and bondage of sin. We were not made for the ditch, but for Him. When He fixes His eye upon us, I believe two things happen. We see ourselves as we are, desperately lost, and we can begin to see what we were made for, life full and free in Him. He has fixed His eye upon you. What do you see?

Blessings,

Pastor O