6/14/13 Anna about 45
A planned early morning discipleship meeting with a church
brother at Dunkin’ Donuts didn’t happen – I guess he overslept – so I turned to
a lady at the table next to me and asked about her beliefs. Her name is Anna, and although she hasn’t
thought much about religion since her childhood she seemed very open to talking,
possible due to the recent passing of her husband. As we talked it seemed like memories of what
she had learned about God and the Bible as a child came flooding back to her,
and I was thankful that she had at least some foundational beliefs that I could
build from. Her neglect of much thought
about God has led her to minimize the seriousness of sin and the depth of God’s
holiness, so that she simply thinks all good people will go to heaven and she
is one of them. Her sins just didn’t
seem that serious to her, so I asked what she believed about Adam and Eve – “What
was so bad about eating from that tree?”
She agreed it was their disobedience, so I talked about the fact that we
all now have the knowledge of good and evil – a God-given conscience – and like
Adam we disobey God every time we choose to go against it, no matter how small
the offense. This helped her begin to
realize the seriousness of her sins and her need for mercy before God, so she
was glad when I began to talk about the forgiveness found in Jesus. In Romans 7, Paul wrote “Is the law sinful?
Certainly not! Nevertheless,
I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law.” It certainly was a good reminder for Anna. James wrote that we should look into the law
like we look into a mirror, using it to see ourselves as we really are, calling
it the “perfect law that gives freedom” because by it we see our need for the
One who can set us free from the law of sin and death. People don’t come to the Savior until they
know they need to be saved. We need to
include the standard of God’s law when sharing the Gospel so people like Anna can
see their need for Jesus.
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