On Easter, two words you can say to Jesus
FILE
-- March 26, 2005: A cross is silhouetted against the sun in Pinellas Park, Fla.
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci) (AP)
I
was five years old when I walked into my mother's bedroom and told her I wanted
to give my life to Christ. We got down on our knees beside the bed and I asked
Jesus into my heart.. After that, I proudly told everyone that Jesus had saved
me, but my pride slowly diminished over the years.
As
I got older, the more I questioned the efficacy of my salvation prayer because,
let's be honest, the five-year-old motives behind it didn't exactly demonstrate
any depth of understanding about what I was doing.
On
the one hand, my parents taught me a lot about the Bible, so by that age, I
really had developed a childhood affection for the miracle-working Savior who
held little kids in His lap and then died to save them.
On
the other hand, I wanted to be born again because I would get to take the grape
juice and cracker during communion at our Baptist Church — not to mention the
most important reason of all: I would avoid going to hell. These reasons didn't
seem like very good ones for wanting to commit my eternal life to God, so I
eventually began to wonder if perhaps I hadn't actually been saved after
all.
Maybe you won't go to church this Easter — maybe you don't even want to. Maybe you're a believer who's insecure about your salvation. Maybe the idea of praying about something as monumental as your eternal salvation seems intimidating to you — you wouldn't even know where to start. Start here: "Remember me."
My
insecurity about my salvation inspired me to repeatedly redo my salvation
prayer, but it never seemed like it was enough. I wanted something more
official. I needed a prayer that would unquestionably provide my eternal
connection to Jesus. But there was a vignette in the Easter story that provided
the security that a prayer for salvation never could.
A
Thief's Last Words
As
Jesus was hanging there and His life was almost over, He had a brief
conversation with one of the two thieves hanging on either side of Him. The
gospel of Matthew tells us that this thief had actually been mocking Jesus
earlier in his crucifixion. But Luke tells us the rest of the story: With the
clock ticking down on his life, the thief had a sudden change of heart and made
a simple request: "Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom."
The
man was a low-life, a common criminal attempting a desperate deathbed
conversion, and all he could utter was a request that wasn't exactly profound:
"Remember me."
Jesus
didn't do an inventory of the man's good or bad deeds before He responded. He
didn't ignore him or wait until the man said the perfect words. "Remember me"
was more than enough. In the final minutes of their lives, Jesus
responded, "Truly I say to you, today you'll be with Me in Paradise."
Maybe
you won't go to church this Easter — maybe you don't even want to. Maybe you're
a believer who's insecure about your salvation. Maybe the idea of praying about
something as monumental as your eternal salvation seems intimidating to
you — you wouldn't even know where to start. Start here: "Remember me."
It
doesn't matter if your motives are self-interested or if you've never shown any
desire to follow Jesus. It doesn't matter how many mistakes you've made and how
many more you're likely to make. He's there willing and waiting to take you home
with Him.
Call
out to Him. Trust that He's willing to welcome you into His kingdom. Ask Him to
remember you today. His certain response will have nothing to do with your
worthiness and everything to do with His unfailing love.
Joshua
Rogers is an attorney and writer who lives in Washington, D.C. You can follow
Joshua on Twitter
@MrJoshuaRogers and Facebook, and
read more of his writing at JoshuaRogers.com.
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