Today is the day of salvation

Luke 13:22-30

Are you one of those people who seem to ask the right questions, I’ve always been a day short on asking the appropriate question in a timely manner?   But Luke gives an account of Jesus going through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem, when someone in the crowd ask Him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?”  Now is that not a great question, but only if it is directed to someone with the knowledge to give an answer. 

We have no information on whom “someone” is, but “someone” may have been a reader of Isaiah the prophet; “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.  For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:6-9)  For it is clear that “someone” understood he was in the presence of the person who knew the answer.

This is Jesus’ answer, “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’ In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out. And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God. And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”

(Luke 13:24-30 ESV)

Today’s culture is not built on intimate relations, not in families, not at work, and not in the places of higher learning, it is built on selfie.  So what message does a “Selfie” world need to hear?  The same one any and all who enter the narrow door has heard, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”  (John 3:16-18)

The narrow door is opened to all who will enter by faith in Jesus alone as the only hope to be free from the power of sin, to enter into a personal relationship with  the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  May I offer some council to all who enter by the narrow door, the world will look like an eighteen lane highway with one lane in the middle going the opposite direction.  The eighteen lane seems faster, and that is because it is, it looks like the cars are nicer, the driver looks well groomed, and it has inviting signage that picture the eighteen lanes as the place for all that the world has to offer.  But it is deceptive, for it is written; “And the world passes away and disappears, and with it the forbidden cravings (the passionate desires, the lust) of it; but he who does the will of God and carries out His purposes in his life abides (remains) forever.” 1 John 2:17 AMP) For many today is the day of salvation, it requires only for you to repent, that means acknowledging your “Selfie” life and asking Jesus to forgive you and believe that He is able to do so.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice