Bob
and Suzanne had done well in their small company, begun in their basement and
gradually grown into a business that employed several dozen people. They had
turned management over to Charles, who had been with the business throughout
its history. They enjoyed retirement and had taken several trips to Europe and
a few luxury cruises.
They were still friends with Charles
and his wife Diane, and they often shared photos and stories of their travels
with them. Once Charles wistfully commented, “We’ve never been on a cruise. It
sure looks nice.” Suzanne suddenly lit up and said, “We have tickets for a
cruise in the Caribbean in two weeks, and it turns out that we are not going to
be able to go. You are a good friend, and we’ll give you those tickets for
free.”
Charles was flabbergasted, but they
eventually persuaded him to take the tickets.
Was it a gift, or not?
Charles took the tickets, but he
didn’t take the trip. Something else came up, he said, and he sold the tickets
to a broker. Bob and Suzanne were deeply hurt—even angry.
Charles was defensive. “When you
give me a gift, doesn’t it belong to me? Can’t I do with it whatever I want? If
you give me a bonus, can’t I spend it however I want?”
The giver and the receiver had
looked at the gift in different ways. Charles thought the cruise tickets were a
bonus for good work; Bob and Suzanne viewed them as a token of friendship.
Oddly enough, a gift from a friend is often less of a gift, because it comes
with certain expectations, whereas the gift of an employer comes with no
obligations at all.
Charles thought they were giving him
tickets; Bob and Suzanne thought they were giving him a cruise. Charles saw a
monetary value; Bob and Suzanne were thinking of an experience. So when Charles cashed in the tickets instead of taking
the cruise, Bob and Suzanne felt that their purpose had been thwarted.
Something similar happens in
salvation. We are saved by grace, not by works. Salvation is a gift—like a free
ticket to heaven. Some people think of it as a “get out of jail free” card to
be saved for an opportune time. They take the ticket, stick it in their dresser
drawer, and go on about life as if nothing important had happened.
They take the ticket, as it were, but they don’t
take the trip. They look at the gift and see only a ticket, and not the
experience that God is offering. The salvation that God gives is not a bonus
for good work habits—it is a gift that we didn’t deserve, a gift given by One who loves us unconditionally.
But salvation is much more than a ticket to heaven—much more than a particular place to spend our retirement years. Our eternity will be enjoyable not because of the pleasant climate or pretty scenery—those things would soon become boring if we were in solitary confinement on a deserted tropical island.
Rather, salvation will be eternally enjoyable
because of the relationships we will
have there—friendships filled with love and kindness as we all share in the
love that flows out from God and fills us with a surplus that we share with
others. Eternity would be misery if we were surrounded by people who were
constantly belittling us, calling us scum, cheating us, or even ignoring us.
But God offers us an eternity of love and goodness—an experience, not a location.
Salvation is more than a ticket to heaven—as if God would simply invite everyone to do as much lying, cheating, and stealing as they want. No, if heaven were filled with liars, cheaters and thieves, then it wouldn’t be a very nice place, would it?
But the idea in salvation is that God takes liars,
cheaters and thieves and changes them—takes
away their desire to lie, cheat and steal and gives them a desire to tell the
truth, to be fair, and to give to others. God takes selfish people and
transforms them into people who love and make sacrifices to help others.
Eternal life is not just a matter of life that never
ends—it involves a changed quality of
life. It is not merely a location—it is a transformation. God not only saves us
from jail, he also saves us from nasty habits that we have—habits that (whether
we know it or not) make our lives miserable: lying, cheating, stealing,
selfishness and other sins that grip our lives and tell us that we are scum.
Salvation is not just a nice change of location—it is a change in who we are.
The good news is that we do not have to wait until
we die before we begin to experience the life of heaven. God’s love is already
available to us, not only to fill us, but also to flow from us to enrich
others. It’s already there to change us to be more like he is, to free us from
the grip of sin. We can work on the relationships even if we aren’t yet in the
perfect location.
God offers us a free ticket, but it’s not just a
promise about where we end up when we die. Rather, it’s an offer of
relationship—a friendship that can begin right now. He doesn’t want the ticket
gathering dust on our chest of drawers—he wants us to take the trip. That’s
because we don’t have to travel alone—we are taking the trip with him.