Turn And Be Saved

For the past 10 days or so we have been in a weather pattern that is known locally as monsoon season. After a dry spring and a summer that has been very dry we are now getting rain, nearly every day. Some days there has been a little and some days, like today, there has been much more. I took this picture at about 8 PM. It is raining for the second time today and so water is running off down our driveway. The boys love to play in this runoff but they are in bed. Perhaps they will have another opportunity tomorrow.

The clouds are thick and so even as there is a little bit of fading light out as I write there is no visible sunlight, and so there is no rainbow. Yesterday I was talking on the phone with a woman from our congregation and she told me of seeing a rainbow last week while she was outside with her daughter. The rainbow had brought to her mind a sense of comfort in God’s promises.

In Genesis 9 God tells Noah that the rainbow will be a visible sign of God’s promise to never again destroy the world through a flood. While the rainbow is a sign of a specific promise of God’s it also reminds me that God is a God who makes promises, and who keeps them. A god who doesn’t keep promises is not a god worth worshipping. The God of the Bible keeps His promises. Every single one.

As the woman and I were talking the conversation turned to the pandemic. Here on the reservation we are going into a two-week lockdown that will begin Sunday evening. For two weeks everyone is supposed to stay at home. There are a few exceptions, such as to exercise daily, for essential workers and people with ranches, and one day a week where one person per household can leave the reservation to shop. Exceptions beyond those will need special permission. Other than for the reasons I mentioned everyone is supposed to stay home for the next two weeks in order to control the spread of COVID-19 in our community.

The woman said that what is really needed in our community is for people to turn back to the Lord. To which I say “Amen!” One of my favorite promises in the Bible is as God speaks through Paul in Romans 10:9, saying:

“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

The promise that comes in Romans 10:9 is the logical outcome of turning to the Lord. Turn from trusting in your self and your own abilities. Turn from trusting in all manner of false gods, be they your family, your vocation, your hobbies, the culture, whatever. Turn from any and all of those things to place your faith in Jesus.

Turning to Jesus does not make everything in life instantly better. But as you turn to him, and place your faith in him, he will be your bedrock, your anchor, the one on whom you stand as you live, each and every day. Turn from false gods to the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.

  

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.