The past is past, and we can’t change it.  If it was good, we can rejoice in it, if it was bad, we can repent of it, but it’s history.

God intends that we live in the present.  Today is the most important day of our life.  It is really all we have, because yesterday is dead and gone and tomorrow may never come, but today is here, and it is in today that live.

I recently heard a man with a terminal illness say, “When you know you’re dying, it changes your perspective on living.”  How wise is the person who takes full advantage of today, because tomorrow, today will be the dead past.

There are times when we just have to wait for clear direction.  We don’t like to wait.  We have been conditioned not to wait.  There was a time when people had to build a fire, if they wanted to cook something, but in our day, they just stick in the microwave.  Even the microwave seems slow to people who are conditioned to not wait.

Why doesn’t God give us immediate direction and understanding?  It may be that He uses the elapsed time to build our faith, or it may that He just delights in our spending some time with Him in prayer.  Whatever the reason, there are times when God lets us wait a while.  Those who wait find that there is a certain amount of blessing in the waiting.

Are all the religions of the world somehow linked together, ultimately ending the subscriber up in heaven?  Is the sincere person of some other faith really worshiping the same God as the sincere Christian, but just calling Him by a different name?  That sounds good, but the Bible says it is not so.  The Bible says there is no other name under heaven given among men, by which we may be saved, except the name of Jesus.  Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father, but by Me.”  If that sounds narrow, it is.  It is called the “narrow way.”

Quite often a church member will tell me that their child has been asking questions about faith in Christ and the matter of salvation.  The fact that a child asks some questions does not mean that they are ready to receive Christ, but it certainly does mean that they have some questions they need answered.

There is a process that takes place in the life of an individual of any age, in the matter of conversion to faith in Christ.  First, the Holy Spirit must raise and awareness of one’s sinful condition, a condition that separates that individual from relationship with God.  That is not to say that the person is a terrible person.  He may in fact be quite nice and have high moral ethics, but all people who are converted must first come to the awareness of their need to be converted.  It is through the hearing of God’s word, the Bible, that the Holy Spirit enlightens an individual to his spiritual need.  Next, through the understanding of what God has revealed in the Bible, the Holy Spirit enlightens the individual to his insufficiency to save himself, but to the sufficiency of God to save him, through the substitutionary death of Jesus on the cross.  Finally, the Holy Spirit gives spiritual life to an individual by enabling him to believe that the gospel is for him.

So, when children ask questions about the matter of salvation, the starting place in counseling with them, is to try and determine what they understand about their sin.  Many children have no real concept of their personal sin, therefore, cannot be truly converted until they do.  If they do have what the Bible calls “godly sorrow,” or conviction of their sin, then they need to understand the message of the gospel.  The gospel is not complicated, and it doesn’t need to made complicated, but it does need to be understood.  No one can really believe what they don’t know.  If the child understands and believes that Jesus died as payment for the sin of sinners, and he knows he is in that category, he will be fully ready to turn his heart to God.  It is at this point that we need to be careful, because while prayer is the tool that the Holy Spirit often uses to solidify one’s initial confidence that peace has been made with God, we are not saved by praying, but by believing.  Evenso, our praying brings a sense of confidence into our experience, and praying is always in season.

If my child asked me questions about salvation, I would talk with about sin and the gospel, and I would then encourage him to turn to God, now, through faith in Christ.  I would encourage him to pray and ask God to save him.  But, I would want him to understand that his salvation was not just based on far a prayer, but on the grace of God.

I have a friend, who is a pastor in another state, and he has a forty year old son, who is unsaved.  My friend told me that he deeply regrets not taking a more active role in attempting to lead his son to faith in Christ, but that he always just assumed that he would come to faith.  Many times, people just need a good head-on confrontation about the matter.  When people join the church where I pastor, by transfer of church letter from another church, I always ask them if they know for sure that they are saved?  I’ve had numerous people over the years come back a few weeks later and say, “I told you I knew I was saved, but I’ve never had anybody just come out and ask me like that, and I’ve been thinking about it, and I’m really not saved.”  Children’s hearts are far more open to the gospel than are adults.  In any congregation, you can ask for a show of hands from people who were saved before becoming adults, and most of the people will raise their hands.

What would it profit a man (or a woman) to gain the whole world and lose his own children!?! 

There is no heavier subject, and there is no even that is more unwelcome, but it remains a reality.  I received word today that my first cousin’s wife died suddenly and unexpected this morning at the age of 52.  It reminds how fragile, and how brief, this life is.

I heard about a man and his son riding down the road in the car and a wasp stung the dad on the arm, and then he flew over on the windshield close to the young boy.  The boy, knowing that it had stung his dad, became panic-stricken that it was going to sting him, also.  The dad told him not to worry, that when the wasp stung him, it left its stinger and could no longer do any damage.  That reminds me of the verse in 1 Corinthians 15 that says, “O grave, where is your victory, O death, where is your sting?”  The answer in that passage is that when Jesus died and rose again, He took the sting out of death, and the victory out of the grave.

The physical death of a loved one causes great pain, but the silver lining in the cloud is that the believer continues to live in a wonderful place called heaven.