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The Christ - Forces Your Hand

"He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters. (Luke 11:23 NIV)

With this very brief but eloquent statement, our Lord Jesus Christ plainly lays before all mankind the essence of every person’s destiny. According to Jesus, either you are with Him or you are against Him. No gray area. Your life demonstrates your choice. This does beg a question therefore: how do know if your life is with Christ or against him? If you give Jesus Christ any kind of credibility in your thought process, then it stands to reason that this question must be answered in your mind and heart. You can’t sit on the sidelines. Christ does not permit it. I love this simplistic black or white theology. You don’t need a Phd to figure it out. Every one with a functioning mind automatically participates. Few (if any) have an out!

I can guarantee you that most who may happen to read this post feel in their heart that they are certainly “not against Christ”. Sure there are a few proudly independent Atheists who relish the idea, but for the most part, few “regular” people would raise their hand to acknowledge that they are “proudly against Jesus”. Yet, by Christ’s own words, they are in fact “against me”. When I was unsaved (through age 33), I will tell you that I lived my life clearly willing to acknowledge that I was certainly “not against Christ”. No, I didn’t pray much (if at all), I never uttered the word Jesus more than a handful of times, I certainly had no desire to go to church to “hang out with the hypocrites” and I certainly viewed the Bible as no more than one of many bookshelf ornaments in my home. Yet plain as day…in my humdrum day-to-day existence, there I was actively living in opposition to Christ. That I didn’t clearly know it made it no less true.

The modern world in which we live abhors simplistic distinctions. To many, this notion is so very old fashioned and unenlightened. They say the world and its complexity are too sophisticated to be broken down into simple yes-no, good-bad distinctions. You must understand and engage in nuances where necessary. Their quandary however is that in the midst of this sophistication comes the simple message of scripture as the Bible says: This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life… (Deuteronomy 30:19-20 NIV) The Lord’s simple message here is you have a choice: life or death! Eternal life or eternal death! You will have one or the other…no gray area! In this scripture, the Lord points out one way how that choice can be made: “…love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life”.

Before I willingly and knowingly accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and therefore accepted Him as the substitute for my sins, I knew of Him, but I didn’t really know about Him. It was not possible for me to “listen to His voice; to hold fast to Him”. It was not really possible for me to be in His camp, in other words to be “with Him”. No…the cold hard truth was that I “was against Him”. In the choice of “life or death, blessing or curses”, I was choosing death and curses! So are you if you are reading this post and you have not given your life over to serving Christ. Sure, you can reject this notion and scoff at it as simply being my opinion and a bad one at that. However you will no longer be able to say that you didn’t know. After reading this post…now you know. However it is also instructive to understand God’s process in waiting on us to make permanent our choices: The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. (2 Peter 3:9-10 NIV) For every person who died yesterday, how many of them knew where they were on the Lord’s time-clock of patience. What about those who will be dying today? God’s patience with them is over. How about your time-clock?

Here is a quick and simple way for you to make the Life choice, just say the following and believe it: “Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, I believe that you died for me. I accept your sacrifice. Thank you for dying for me. Thank you for giving me eternal Life. Thank you for accepting my prayer. Amen” – If you just prayed this prayer. Congratulations! Here is Jesus’ word to you: "I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. (John 5:24 NIV)
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