Penny For Your Salvation?

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So first off I would like to point out that I am quite aware that Jesus was/is not of Anglo-Saxon Descent and neither are angels, at least as far as I know.  Now to the real reasons for this post. Today my mom took me and my brothers to Alabama's Number One Tourist Site, The Space and Rocket Center. Now I had not been there in years, my first time being in third grade but that is a different story for a different day. It made for fun times although Alabama could definitely try funneling a little more money into the tourism budget. On the way home from Huntsville we stopped in Birmingham for WinterJam 2010. If you are not aware of what that is, it is one of the largest Christian music tours of the year. This year's was graced by such names as Newsboys, Tenth Avenue North, and Third Day. If you've never heard of any of those (especially Newsboys), you must have never listened to any Christian music, ever. I had never seen Newsboys in concert and I finally got to see them play "Breakfast", a classic Newsboys song. And since Michael Tait is the new lead singer, I also got to see them perform "Jesus Freak", which in my opinion is one of the best Christian songs of all time. Needless to say it brought back many memories of the 90's.

The speaker was a guy by the name of Tony Nolan. I got to listen to Tony speak last year at Xtreme Conference in Pigeon Forge, and he has been great both times I have heard him. At the show tonight he started out by bring up a kid from the crowd (which was about 15,000 in size by the way) and told him that if he would give him a penny, he would give the kid fifty dollars.  Needless to say the kid pulled out a penny and gave it to Tony and Tony followed through with his end of the deal and gave the kid a fifty dollar bill. He then asked the crowd if the kid got a good deal to which he was granted a resounding yes. He then compared his act to the salvation that Jesus offers to all men and referenced this piece of amazing scripture:

"And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?"

Matthew 16:26

I think that all too often we refuse to see how much Jesus is offering us in exchange for practically nothing. Through the death and resurrection of our Savior we are granted eternal life with him and a complete pardon for all our sins. All we have to do is have true faith in Him and refuse the rule of sin over our lives. Let's go over that again:

Doing the right thing + Believing in Jesus as the Way = Eternal Life + Freedom from Judgment

Something tells me it should be something more like:

Doing the right thing + Believing in Jesus as the Way <<<<<< Eternal Life + Freedom from Judgment

We make things so much harder on ourselves by holding on to sin and just all of our "stuff". If you are anything like a normal person, you have your weaknesses and you "stuff" that you refuse or have trouble letting go of. If we could wrap our minds around the fact that this world will not last. That everything will pass and return to dust, and if scripture has anything to say about it, "be consumed by fire." If we could do that, we would realize how easy we are getting off of the hook. All we have to due is love. Love and Believe. Are those such hard things? Not really, but we make them out to be. Next time you need some motivation to carry out your end of the deal, just remember the chorus from "Breakfast":

When the toast has burned,
And all the milk has turned,
And Captain Crunch is waving farewell.
When the big one finds you,
May this song remind you,
That they don't serve breakfast in hell.