A Christian's 30 Day Challenge To Deeper Living

Day 9: Your Time Is Short

Ok, class, who here has ever heard of Toby Mac?  Yes, that's right, he is one of the most popular Christian musicians of this generation.  (Here's an interesting fact, Toby Mac graduated from Liberty University, the college I'm planning to attend!)  Now, don't get me wrong in this, I love his music, but I don't agree with him on everything.

The bone I have to pick with Toby is one line in the chorus of "Get Back Up".  "Get Back Up" is a very inspirational song, and I personally listen to it quite a bit (it's on my play list for when I'm running so I hear it almost every day).  The thing I don't like about the song is it gives a false sense of security.  Here's the line I'm talking about: "It's never too late to get back up again."  That's where I have issues.

Let me show you where I'm coming from: Revelation 2:21- "I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling." The verses after that then continue on to explain how God is going to cast her into Hell for her sins.

I'm not trying to scare you!  That's not the point of this.  What I'm getting at is, God has given us a wonderful gift.  Revelation 2:5 says, "Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place."  God has given us the gift of grace, but we cannot use that gift as an excuse for sinning.  I have done this myself, so I'm right here with you.  It is so easy to sin and then think, "Oh, it will be ok.  God will forgive me.  I'm going to sin now and then ask for forgiveness later."  We do have the wonderful gift of forgiveness, but it is not to be abused.

So this all ties back to "It's never too late to get back up again."  That is a nice thing to think, but it is a false sense of security, because honestly, it can be too late to get back up again.  If we keep sinning and sinning and falling into a deeper hole of sin every day, we will fall further and further away from God until we start to forget about Him altogether.  Can you still repent and come back to God?  Sure!  I'm not trying to give you the idea that we have to work our way into Heaven, because that's not true either.  It is only by God's grace that we will enter Heaven.  Ultimately it is Jesus's gift to us of dying on the cross that will save us.  But we have to be careful because our time is ticking away.  We have to make sure that we don't fall into the trap of thinking that we'll just get saved when we're through college so we can go to some awesome parties.  That is a deadly trap to fall into, because we don't know that we're going to live until after college.  What would happen if we were in some freak car accident and died?  Would we still have God's mercy?  Well, that depends on whether we are truly saved or not.  I am not God so I cannot claim to know His judgment.  I do believe once saved, always saved, but I also know that many people live under the false security that they are saved, when maybe they just whispered a few words without really meaning it.

So this brings us to another question: can you be saved and not act like it?  I don't believe so.  I believe once we are saved, we should act like we're saved.  It is impossible to be saved and then continue living a normal, sinful life without feeling any guilt.  When we become a Christian, we should be different.  People should be able to look at us and know we are different.  As my friend once said, "If within the first five minutes of meeting you a person cannot tell you are a Christian, you're doing it wrong."  We all have sins in life that we are going to struggle with, but you should be working to improve on them instead of continuing in them without a problem.

In conclusion, I am not God so I do not know His judgment.  Also, I did not write this all out just to scare you.  We are human, so we are going to sin, and we are cleaned of our sins because Jesus came to die for us.  I just think that we shouldn't live a life of sin thinking that we will straighten out later, because we honestly do not know if we will ever get to later.

I hope you guys think about this and understand what I am saying.  If you have any questions or comments, feel free to private message me or leave a comment below.

God bless!

-Aly :)