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Thought For The Week: What it means to accept Christ
A few things, fortunately only a few, are
matters of life and death, such as a compass for a sea voyage or a guide
for a journey across the desert. To ignore these vital things is not to
gamble or take a chance; it is suicide. Here it is either be right or
dead.
Our relation to Christ is such a matter of life or death, and on a
much higher plane. The Bible instructed man knows that Jesus Christ came
into the world to save sinners and that men are saved by Christ alone
altogether apart from any works of merit.
That much is true and known, but obviously the death and resurrection
of Christ do not automatically save everyone... How does that which
Christ did FOR me become operative WITHIN me? To fail here is not to
gamble with our souls: it is to guarantee eternal banishment from the
face of God. Here we must be right or be finally lost.
Being spiritually lazy we naturally tend to gravitate toward the
easiest way of settling our religious questions for our selves and
others; hence the formula (most often heard) is "Accept Christ". It has
become a panacea of universal application, and I believe it is fatal to
many. Though undoubtedly an occasional serious minded penitent may find
in it all the instruction he needs to bring him into living contact with
Christ, I fear too many seekers use it as a short cut to the Promised
Land... .
The trouble is that the whole "Accept Christ" attitude is likely to
be wrong. It shows Christ applying to us rather than us to Him. It makes
Him stand hat-in-hand awaiting our verdict on Him, instead of our
kneeling with troubled hearts awaiting His verdict on us. It may even
permit us to "accept Christ" by an impulse of mind or emotions,
painlessly, at no loss to our ego and no inconvenience to our usual way
of life.
To accept Christ is to form an attachment to the Person of our Lord
Jesus altogether unique in human experience. The attachment is
intellectual, volitional (action of the will) and emotional. The
believer is intellectually convinced that Jesus is both Lord and Christ;
he has set his will to follow Him at any cost and soon his heart is
enjoying the sweetness of His fellowship.
This attachment is all-inclusive in that it joyfully accepts Christ
for all that He is. There is no division of offices whereby we may
acknowledge His Saviourhood today and withhold decision on His Lordship
until tomorrow...
Further, his attachment to Christ is all-exclusive. The Lord becomes
to him not ONE of several rival interests, but one exclusive attraction
forever.
That we accept Christ in this all-inclusive, all-exclusive way is a
divine imperative. Here faith makes its leap into God through the Person
and work of Christ, but it never divides the work from the Person. It
never tries to believe on the blood apart from Christ Himself, or the
cross or "finished work." It believes on the LORD JESUS CHRIST, the
whole Christ without modification or reservation, and thus it receives
and enjoys all that He did in His work of redemption, all that He is now
doing in heaven for His own and all that He does in and through them.
By: A.W. Tozer
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