It has never been more important to push towards eternal salvation than right now. While that statement is completely true for those of us presently called, it equally applied to Christians living throughout the history of the true Church. Our calling hinges on choices we make today. We cannot change our past actions nor can we direct our future with absolute precision. But today, we can point ourselves in a righteous direction and be assured, through the indwelling of God’s Holy Spirit, that our path will lead to success.
Our decision to change and commit ourselves must not be with any reservations. When Lot’s wife turned back, she lost her means to escape sin because she wasn’t fit for a life leading to Godly freedom. From His disciples, Jesus required (and requires today) complete submission to His lead.
When Jesus walked the earth, many flocked to Him with a desire to become His disciples. But He required proof of commitment above just simple desire. “Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, ‘Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.’ Then He said to another, ‘Follow Me.’ But he said, ‘Lord, let me first go and bury my father.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.’ And another also said, ‘Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.’” (Luke 9:57-62).
The apprehension and wavering in their willingness to commit most likely cost those men a place as the firstborn of God. But they weren’t alone in a reluctance, especially when difficulties arose in understanding. When Christ talked about the necessity of eating of His flesh and drinking of His blood, “…many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can understand it?… From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more” (John 6:60,66).
When given the opportunity to change, we must have the willingness to do it today. We cannot put our salvation on the back-burner, hoping to get to it when we feel better equipped. We must have the same courage and zeal to change that the core disciples of Christ demonstrated. “And as He [Christ] walked by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. Then Jesus said to them, ‘Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.’ They immediately left their nets and followed Him. When He had gone a little farther from there, He saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the boat mending their nets. And immediately He called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants, and went after Him” (Mark 1:16-20).
These men, by faith, stepped away from everything and followed Christ. God is faithful and patient (see 2 Peter 3:9), but we must not test His patience in our own unwillingness to change. We must keep stride with Christ because His lead is all we have as a guide in this ungodly world. Paul summed up this immediacy quite well, “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25 NIV). Let us all demonstrate our zeal today, as though our choices determine our entrance into the Kingdom of God, because they do.
