Saturday, September 6, 2008

Is Salvation Mine to Give away?

4:00 PM by Christi Bowman

I Sam 3:6-7
Again the LORD called, "Samuel!" And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, "Here I am; you called me."
"My son," Eli said, "I did not call; go back and lie down."
Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD : The word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him.

Verse 7 stopped me dead in my tracks, as the meaning of it plunged deep inside of me and called to something I already knew from experience.

By the time Samuel heard the voice of God call his name, the temple had been his home for quite some time. In chapter 2 we see the evil of Eli's boys, and we know from verse 18 in that chapter that Samuel grew up watching them, but he chose to serve God. Samuel grew up in "church". You could say he attended "private" school. He even made all the right decisions and served God by doing so...yet chapter 3 cuts through all of that and lays wide open the fact that Samuel did not yet know the Lord, because the Lord had not revealed Himself to Samuel yet.

I know first hand what it is like to grow up in church. I know what it is like to grow up surrounded by religion and not know God. I know the confusion that duality stirs up in your heart. I know what it is like to be delivered from that confusion by the sound of His voice. He did not just save me proverbially when He saved the world from sin. No, it was NOT that simple! He saved and rescued me personally...from my own private hell. I have experienced tangible salvation, and I know Him personally because He came to me personally.

Still, I am confronted, almost daily, with real people and real hurts, in the church atmosphere. There is no underlying joy...no hope in many. they don't possess the ability to see past the present circumstances; they don't because they haven't experienced Christ. They don't believe that He really is the answer. The difference in what they know academically and what they have actually experienced is painful. They snicker and look down at the ground because they don't believe in His saving presence in their lives today. People believe that Jesus has saved them from their sins and an eternity in hell...but that is just fire insurance. What about right here and right now? They need a God they can depend on. They need a physical encounter with Him that changes everything. They need a personal and physical salvation of sorts...but they have to be open minded to the fact that salvation is not always as it appears or what they have conjured it up to be in their minds.

I can "go" all day long, but the playing fields are unequal. They don't know what I have found...and although it is mine, it is not mine to give away...at least not yet. And maybe there in lies the key...but that kind of faith will take time...and will get me called a heretic.

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