I had the privilege of being taught Theology by an amazing Pastor/Teacher during my junior high years. Everything he taught challenged me on a consistent basis and shaped the way I approach the Bible now, all these years later.
He was serious about not only learning Scripture but applying it as well.
I could tell you a hundred lessons I learned in his class that still speak to me today but there is one lesson I think of daily.
There is one lesson that is never far from my thoughts or my heart. One lesson that I’ve scribbled on each of my Bibles and in countless notebooks; one lesson that has knocked me right in the heart as he spoke the words:
“God has no grandchildren.”
He spoke those words to a class full of teenagers and I sat wide-eyed as he said, “You won’t get to heaven just because your parents believe in Christ. Or your boyfriend or girlfriend does. Or because your teachers test you on Him. You won’t spend eternity with Christ because your best friend worshiped Him here on earth. You’ve got to decide for yourself…”
God has no grandchildren? What in the world? My junior high self had never thought of things like that. I’d never considered the idea of there being no in between.
He didn’t speak those words with the purpose of evoking fear in our hearts; he spoke them with compassion. He spoke them like a man who had seen too many teens think they could coast by on the beliefs of others without really knowing Christ for themselves…
Those words changed my life. I was certainly saved at that point but it was those words that begged me to get to know Christ for myself. On my own. To find Him true.
And I have.
This is a message that shouldn’t be lost on the youth around us. We need to speak these words to them – not for the sake of fear but for the sake of kindness. We’ve got to speak the truth and invite them to get to know Christ for themselves.
We serve a God we can know!
God may not have grandchildren but He does have sons and daughters whom He loves enough…whom He ransomed by the blood of His Son…whom He calls His own…whom He is coming for.
“…that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”
*Photo Credit, sxc.hu
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