No waiting list with God Peter Jeery
T
he heart surgeon told me that I had a serious heart condition and needed a bypass operation. I asked him when this would be done.
He replied that he was putting me on his waiting list. He said that I was 98th on his list and he was doing two operations a week. So I was not likely to get the operation for at least a year. I said if I had a serious heart condition I could be dead by then. He agreed but said that that was how it was. Some time before this God told me through his Word and the preaching of the gospel that spiritually I had a serious heart condition. It was urgent and terminal and needed seeing to at once. Fortunately there was no waiting list with God. What needed to be done could be done at once. To do my bypass the hospital surgeon had to cut open my chest to get at the heart. God also has to cut. In the words of Acts 2:37 it is a cutting to the heart. In other words God causes us to be deeply aware of our sin and our need of salvation. There is no waiting list with God because on the cross Jesus did all that was necessary to deal with human sin. He took the guilt and punishment that sin deserved and died in the sinners place.
God is now able to take away the heart of stone, that sin has left in every one of us, and replace it with a heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 36:26). Our problem is that we have an ‘unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God’. We see the consequence of this in Genesis 6, ‘And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually’. If you don’t believe that then just look at your own heart and ask if this is not true of you. The gospel reduces us all to a mass of quivering jelly. It cuts to the heart. It does not puff up but pulls us down. We feel we are totally unqualified for heaven & completely hopeless before God. But that is not true. Do you want to be a Christian? Then you are qualified because all the qualification God requires is that you be a sinner. In that no one is more qualified than you. You say you have no hope of being acceptable to God – that’s true if you are relying on yourself. But the gospel offers us another hope – Jesus. This is amazing!
You are offered the qualification of Jesus – his holiness, goodness, sinlessness and character. That is an infallible hope. Cut to the heart? If you have been you will be asking, what shall we do? Repent – see how hopeless you are if left to yourself but see also the glorious hope you have in Jesus.
Cut to the heart? A person is never so near to grace as when he feels hopeless and guilty. The hospitals have waiting lists because their resources are finite. The National Health Service, good though it is, cannot meet the demands made upon it. God has no such problems. He saves everyone who comes to him in repentance and faith. No one is turned away disappointed and disillusioned. The heart job God does is guaranteed to last a life time and never need repeating. God promises, ‘I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them.’
I am thankful for the heart bypass operation I had twenty years ago. Without it I would be dead by now, but I know it will not last forever. The work of grace God did on me will last. If you want God to deal with the sin of your heart then come to him and ask him to do it for you. There are no waiting lists, so come now. To ‘come’ means to believe in Jesus, to trust him, commit your soul to him and be saved. This is beautifully illustrated in the parable of the Lost Son in Luke 15. Read carefully from verse 17 to verse 24. The words ‘He came to his senses’ mean that he began to think seriously about what had happened. We see him reviewing his life. He has stopped thinking superficially, and for the first time he is seeing things as they really are. What a mess he is in! How desperate his need is! Are you in this situation? He realizes that there is only one answer: he must go back to his father. Why? Because he has come to the conclusion that the decision to leave home was not just a bad mistake; it was sin - sin against his father and sin against heaven, that is, against God. His sin has caused him great misery, but, more than that, it has caused misery both to his father and to God.
Is this how you are thinking at the moment? Then do something about it. In verses 17-19 we see the lost son deciding on the right course to take, and then in verse 20 he acts upon it. It may be that by the grace of God you can clearly see the problem of sin and you now know the way of salvation. Do not stop at that: come to God! Once you make that response to God of repentance and faith, you will realize that God the Father is moving toward you in love and compassion, just as the Lost Son did. There will be no need to ask, ‘Will he receive me?’
God loves you, Jesus died for you, the Holy Spirit is drawing you, so come! Read again verses 20-24 and see there the wonderful reception a repentant sinner receives from God himself.
“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” Hebrews 4:7
peter@peterjeery.org.uk
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