Installment Plan

 "Jesus said to him, 'If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.' " Matthew 19:21.... "The rich young ruler met Jesus and decided to hold on to his wealth. Zacchaeus the tax collector encountered Jesus and wanted to let go of everything else." Chris Tiegreen...."When Jesus calls a man, He bids him to come and die." Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It's amazing how many unbiblical ideas we have in the American church. As someone said, we seem to think that we can take Jesus as Savior, and then as Lord at some future time...if at all. In effect, we come to Him piecemeal, a part of us at a time. Somehow, we think Jesus is OK with this. He isn't, and we can know this by searching His Word and His call to those who would follow Him. He commands us to bring all, offer all, surrender all, to Him. He calls us to the same cross He went to. To the cross He died upon. To enter into the life Paul did, "to be crucified with Christ, so that it is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me."

Someone posed the question to the church in the west; "Into what are we inviting people to come in our invitation to come to Christ?" It often seems as if we're inviting them to take Jesus as a means of making their lives better. Jesus makes improvements in us and around us. Life gets better, easier, and then at the end of it all, there's heaven. How we got to this message is puzzling because nothing in His Word gives any verification of that. In much of the current "preaching," there is no cross. There may be one on the roof or front of the church. There may be one in the sanctuary itself, but there is little of it in what it is we've been proclaiming. We've developed a faith that contains no cross and no cost, and that is not biblical faith at all.

We know little of what it is to be "living sacrifice" as Paul preached in Romans 12. 

Jesus Christ is the Savior. His Word tells us so, but the Lordship of Christ is spoken of far more in His Word than is His role as Savior. In John 6, a large number of His followers were with Him until He confronted them with His command that to continue on with Him, they must surrender every part of themselves to Him with nothing held back. Scripture tells us that almost all of them "followed Him no more" because of that command. It was a stumbling block to them, just as it was to the rich young ruler in Matthew 19, just as it is to so many today. And we wonder why there seems to be so little Holy Spirit power in the church. I have a distinct sense that if such a message were proclaimed with regularity in the modern church, many of those currently in attendance would not continue in attendance for very long. We embrace Him as a Savior but we're not anxious to know Him as Lord of all.

Vance Havner said that "We need men (and women) of the cross, with the message of the cross, bearing the marks of the cross." He said that more than 50 years ago. It was a desperate need then and an even more desperate one now. Whatever was offered on the altar of God was completely burnt up. Nothing was held back. Whoever died upon a cross, died completely and not in parts. We cannot receive Jesus in pieces and He certainly will not receive us in pieces. There is no installment plan in the Kingdom. As the old hymn goes, "Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe." Another old hymn says, "All to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely give." I don't know of any hymns or Scriptures that speak of installment plans. Do you?

Blessings,
Pastor O