When God steps in

There is a local nonprofit that regularly sits in front of a local shopping store. They set up their tables and cover them with handmade (I assume) wooden crosses and beg, for lack of a better description, money off passersby as they try to go into or out of the store. They do not usually ask you if you'd like to buy a cross, only if you would like to donate money to help them help drug addicts.

I have no idea if their program is a good one or not, no idea how much help they give. What I do know is that they are parked at the front of the store on a regular basis and it's always the same thing. Time and again I have encountered them as I tried to do my grocery shopping.

I will admit that I do not care for people setting up at the entrance to a store bombarding customers as they try to get their shopping done. I realize it's effective and I can see where occassionally it might be necessary, like in the aftermath of a natural disaster, or when a local family loses it's home to a fire, but those aren't usually the reasons people set up in front of the stores. It's rarely about individual people and generally is about nonprofit organizations.

But my own feelings on that really are irrelevant. It's not my opinion that has me writing this today but a conversation I had with my husband.

He's been meditating on certain things lately and today this was one of them. He knows of a couple of men that are 'Christians' whose 'testamonies' he has heard. These men's 'testamonies' are similiar, involving drinking/drugs, leaving their wives and children, and chasing women only to be 'saved' from that by God.

I don't doubt that they were saved by God, we are saved by Him daily no matter what we do or do not do. If we wake up in the morning it's because He wills it. If we live another day, any day, it's because He wills it.

I have a close relative that has recently made the discovery that God controls all and has said many times 'God did that' or 'God put that person there'. It's almost funny to hear the awe in the words but there's nothing funny about God doing anything. For me, it's always an 'of course God did it, God does everything' but for this relative it really is a brand new understanding.

And yet...

These men my husband knows of...they give credit to God for 'saving' them but to what end? The complete story always goes something like 'God saved me out of that so now I'm a Christian'. And they truly believe it.

When I was nine years old I met a girl that would become my best friend. Her dad was a penecostal preacher and his story was very similar to those of the men my husband knows of. He was a drug addict that was 'saved' out of drugs and 'turned his life around' so much that he became a preacher because 'God saved him'.

Don't get me wrong, the stories are remarkable in themselves. One only needs to know one drug addict or alcoholic to see what a destructive, downward spiral they are on. It only takes observation to be able to realize that something other than common sense, love, or...whatever, is controlling them. It's almost as though you can see the hands of Satan pulling their strings, controlling their actions.

They may start out careful enough, trying a bit of this or a sip of that, but if that drug/drink takes control of them, once they are addicted, it is the only thing they live for. They tumble deeper and deeper into a dark abyss that they not only cannot get out of but they do not want to get out of it, even if they sometimes claim they do.

They will trade body and soul for whatever it is that they are addicted to. They often give up friends and worse, family, walking away from spouses and children, tossing them aside as if they do not matter in the least. Their kids are neglected, abused, and if they are lucky abandoned to someone elses care.

And so goes the hand of what might appear to be Satan, tugging all their strings, destroying them and all connections that truly matter in their lives. Those that love them the most are the ones that are hurt the worst.

And for the lucky few that God chooses to save out of that destruction, for the few that He yanks out of Satan's hand, at least in that regard, and tosses back onto a 'normal' life...for those few, they often give credit to God saving them.

And God did save them.

Only they never seem to move beyond 'God saved me' to seeing whether or not the saving they experienced was true salvation or merely a plucking them out of the dark abyss of addiction and giving them back a 'normal' life.

They tell their stories, share their experiences, try to 'save' others from the same pit and through it all many of them believe they have achieved true salvation because 'God saved me'.

But did He?

Did he really?

Or did He merely redirect their lives so that they are now just as lost as they were before only now they are blinded to the darkness that they are lost in?

And so my husband has been meditating on this lately. He said he would like to walk up to those people selling the crosses and ask them who Christ is to them, ask them what they see in Scripture, ask them...anything that shows a difference in the 'you chose Christ so you're saved' mentality and tell them if that's all they have then they still have nothing.

My husband talks often of a man he knows from years back, this man is one of the men with one of these kinds of testamonies. This man is now big in the 'church' and often 'saves' people by helping them 'give their life to Christ'.

Sometimes my husband engages with this man but mostly he does not. There's really no point. This man is so lost in his belief that 'you chose Jesus' belief system that there is not showing him that it isn't Scriptural.

That is the case with so many though. Once they are tugged into the 'church' system mentality it is nearly impossible to show them that Scripture says we do not chose Christ but He chooses us. It's something they cannot see, something they do not want to see.

And so they give credit to God for things like saving them from addiction, from a bad marriage, from a car accident or natural disaster yet they cannot see that God may have merely saved them for a season in this life, preserved them on this earth, for a purpose that has nothing to do with them.

They fail to see whether or not their 'saving' has anything to do with eternal salvation and all they see is that they were 'saved' so therefore God 'saved' them. Their life is new again.

But were they born again?

They may come out of their addiction (or women chasing, or whatever sin they were in) to hate that particular thing but do they hate all sin? Do they love Christ? Do they love Scripture?

One can see the hand of God in this world if we but look for it. He is there in the blowing of the wind, in the beautiful butterfly flitting before us, in the spring flowers, and the winter snow. He is there in the birth of a new baby. In...every breath we take.

But can one see that when God's hand intervene's on their behalf it may only be to 'save' them in an earthly way? When they say God 'saved' them...do they test themselves to see if they are in the Spirit? Do they devour Scripture...straight from Scripture and not some man twisted idea of what Scripture is...and do they love it? Do they see all the truth's in it?

They can clearly see when God steps in to save them from what they believe is themselves and they are happy to give Him credit for saving them but can they see that God stepped in long before they were born?

They..

so many people fit the description of they...

They clearly see when they are saved from an addiction or from an accident of some sort and they happily attribute it to God but can they see that God has been stepping in all along and that their 'choosing' Him is nothing more than an illusion because unless He steps in than they will never attain salvation?