The following is from 2016 and I bring it back as my Lord's Day post:
I wasn't familiar with the movie....All The Right Moves....from 1983. It starred a young Tom Cruise so I Googled it....not planning to watch it.....but the end of the film grabbed my interest. Cruise plays a high school football player from a poor community in Western Pennsylvania whose only hope to go to college and become an engineer is to get a football scholarship....but his cockiness in a big game causes the team to lose.....and he gets kicked off the team. One thing leads to another and the coach then blackballs him from getting that scholarship that he desperately needs. Well I'm not too interested so far but at the end of the film the coach has a dramatic change of heart and Cruise's character gets that scholarship. Now I'm interested....so I decide to watch the film. I know....that' a backward way of choosing a movie to watch....reading about the ending first.....but it's not the first time I've done that. So I watched the two hour movie only because I wanted to see the five minute ending....and just as the football coach is about to have compassion on the young man.......my cable went out! So I'm adding this preface to the following post that I just wrote. I think that you might see the slight correlation:
The Older One Gets
If I didn't have something to say in these posts that the reader may not hear anywhere else, or if I didn't say it in a way that one might not have heard it before, then I would have wasted the last almost eight (now nine) years.
There is a rather important misconception that I think most people operate under as it concerns one's consideration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I write this from decades of experience with older folks...of which I guess that I am now one myself (at 68). It does not appear that the older one gets....that the more amenable to acknowledging their lost condition they become. In fact....it seems that opposite may be true.
There are few things as wonderful as an infant whose bright eyes can fixate on your own in a remarkably inquisitive stare....or the countenance of an elderly person who is secure in Jesus Christ....and the knowledge that they will surely soon be welcomed into heaven after a long pilgrimage here on earth....but it appears that if they are without Christ....that the older one gets....the more set in their ways they become....and the less likely they will be to seek Christ.
Is it not true that many younger and even middle-aged people admit that someday something will have to be done concerning their questionable standing before God but they purposely put off that confrontation to a time later in life? Maybe this is how you feel....but there are problems in this planning....problems with eternal consequences:
First of all you do not know how many more days you have left. This is thus gambling is it not? You who would never gamble your hard earned money....are gambling with eternity....betting that you have adequate time to pursue your dreams your way and then later in life consider the claims of Jesus Christ.
Second, there is no hint in God's Word that anything but immediate repentance is commanded. This is not an invitation....it's a command! So....making the conscious decision to wait is an act of disobedience in itself....and the conclusion to all this should not bode well to any reasonable mind.
Third, and the topic of this post, it may very well be that the longer one waits....the harder one's heart becomes. Yet this is the gamble that multitudes take.
Try doing something that I find myself doing quite often....a celebrity of some sort comes on the television....an older celebrity.....maybe a Robert Redford or a Jack Nicholson....picture him as he once was....a robust young actor taking Hollywood by storm. The years have passed and whatever actor you pick has had it all so to speak. That's the bargain....one gets the world for maybe quite a while....as coming to faith in Christ becomes less and less likely....whereas a laborer in what would be the most servile of jobs....a common laborer with no fame or fortune but who has a rock solid kinship with the King of Kings...is himself a king already....a king in the eyes of the Creator of this world....a laborer whose life now may be somewhat of a mystery as to what tomorrow may bring but whose eternal future is clear as the promises of God are true. There is a winner and a loser in situations like this. The gambler will most likely lose....while the redeemed in Christ has already won!
Tomorrow is the Lord's Day. There is no more appropriate day to prostrate oneself before the Lord Jesus Christ in humble gratitude that you have not as of yet been called to account. Ask for the mercy of salvation promised to all that trust in Jesus Christ. There is no more acceptable time than the present. You have a Bible....everyone has a Bible....even atheists have Bibles....open it to the Book of Psalms....for you will see how God is praised by those who know Him. Read the words in the expectation that you will also see He who others cannot but praise and glorify! He has not commanded you to come to Him only to turn you away
I wasn't familiar with the movie....All The Right Moves....from 1983. It starred a young Tom Cruise so I Googled it....not planning to watch it.....but the end of the film grabbed my interest. Cruise plays a high school football player from a poor community in Western Pennsylvania whose only hope to go to college and become an engineer is to get a football scholarship....but his cockiness in a big game causes the team to lose.....and he gets kicked off the team. One thing leads to another and the coach then blackballs him from getting that scholarship that he desperately needs. Well I'm not too interested so far but at the end of the film the coach has a dramatic change of heart and Cruise's character gets that scholarship. Now I'm interested....so I decide to watch the film. I know....that' a backward way of choosing a movie to watch....reading about the ending first.....but it's not the first time I've done that. So I watched the two hour movie only because I wanted to see the five minute ending....and just as the football coach is about to have compassion on the young man.......my cable went out! So I'm adding this preface to the following post that I just wrote. I think that you might see the slight correlation:
The Older One Gets
If I didn't have something to say in these posts that the reader may not hear anywhere else, or if I didn't say it in a way that one might not have heard it before, then I would have wasted the last almost eight (now nine) years.
There is a rather important misconception that I think most people operate under as it concerns one's consideration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I write this from decades of experience with older folks...of which I guess that I am now one myself (at 68). It does not appear that the older one gets....that the more amenable to acknowledging their lost condition they become. In fact....it seems that opposite may be true.
There are few things as wonderful as an infant whose bright eyes can fixate on your own in a remarkably inquisitive stare....or the countenance of an elderly person who is secure in Jesus Christ....and the knowledge that they will surely soon be welcomed into heaven after a long pilgrimage here on earth....but it appears that if they are without Christ....that the older one gets....the more set in their ways they become....and the less likely they will be to seek Christ.
Is it not true that many younger and even middle-aged people admit that someday something will have to be done concerning their questionable standing before God but they purposely put off that confrontation to a time later in life? Maybe this is how you feel....but there are problems in this planning....problems with eternal consequences:
First of all you do not know how many more days you have left. This is thus gambling is it not? You who would never gamble your hard earned money....are gambling with eternity....betting that you have adequate time to pursue your dreams your way and then later in life consider the claims of Jesus Christ.
Second, there is no hint in God's Word that anything but immediate repentance is commanded. This is not an invitation....it's a command! So....making the conscious decision to wait is an act of disobedience in itself....and the conclusion to all this should not bode well to any reasonable mind.
Third, and the topic of this post, it may very well be that the longer one waits....the harder one's heart becomes. Yet this is the gamble that multitudes take.
Try doing something that I find myself doing quite often....a celebrity of some sort comes on the television....an older celebrity.....maybe a Robert Redford or a Jack Nicholson....picture him as he once was....a robust young actor taking Hollywood by storm. The years have passed and whatever actor you pick has had it all so to speak. That's the bargain....one gets the world for maybe quite a while....as coming to faith in Christ becomes less and less likely....whereas a laborer in what would be the most servile of jobs....a common laborer with no fame or fortune but who has a rock solid kinship with the King of Kings...is himself a king already....a king in the eyes of the Creator of this world....a laborer whose life now may be somewhat of a mystery as to what tomorrow may bring but whose eternal future is clear as the promises of God are true. There is a winner and a loser in situations like this. The gambler will most likely lose....while the redeemed in Christ has already won!
Tomorrow is the Lord's Day. There is no more appropriate day to prostrate oneself before the Lord Jesus Christ in humble gratitude that you have not as of yet been called to account. Ask for the mercy of salvation promised to all that trust in Jesus Christ. There is no more acceptable time than the present. You have a Bible....everyone has a Bible....even atheists have Bibles....open it to the Book of Psalms....for you will see how God is praised by those who know Him. Read the words in the expectation that you will also see He who others cannot but praise and glorify! He has not commanded you to come to Him only to turn you away
