John Bookman has come to a point in his life where he's tried everything, but senses a spiritual vacuum that nothing and no one has been able to fill. Mr. Bookman has begun his spiritual quest that he hopes will bring his restless to an end. John figures the best way to do this is to start digging into books about Christianity and to learn what his wife has been nagging him about: "How to be saved," as she calls it.
John wants to be thorough and study all he can to answer that question. He goes to a Christian bookstore and buys three books, "The Gospel According to Jesus," "Hard to Believe," and "Faith Works," all by the same author. Every evening, he seals himself off from the distractions of family, computers, and television and, with pen and paper he begins to read, carefully recording the requirements to be saved that he finds as he reads word by word, line by line, paragraph by paragraph, and page by page. Here's what he recorded:
Follow Christ
Surrender to Christ
Be Willing to Obey
Commit yourself
Turn From Sin
Be Willing to Sacrifice Everything
Give Up All For the Kingdom
Deny Self
Love Christ supremely
Give Up All Your Earthly Possessions if the Lord Should Ask This
Give Yourself Totally to Him
Fulfill the Demands of Discipleship
Have “a transforming commitment to the living Christ”
Follow Him in submissive obedience
Deny self, take up a cross, forsake all and follow Christ
Repent, surrender and have an eagerness to obey
Obey Christ
Yield one’s life to the Lordship of Christ
Be willing to forsake everything
Commit yourself to obedience
Make Christ the highest authority in your life
Be willing to obey
Repent and follow Jesus
Turn from sin
Forsake oneself for Christ’s sake
Be willing to sacrifice everything to acquire the kingdom
Give up all for the kingdom
Totally abandon self-will
Exchange all that you are for all that Christ is
Make a full exchange of self for the Savior (“absolute surrender”)
Turn from sin, abandon self and intend to obey God
Repudiate the old life
Turn from evil and intend to serve God
Surrender to Christ and choose to obey Him
Deny self and follow Christ
Love Christ more than your own family members, be unquestionably loyal to Him even above your families
Obey Christ’s divine authority
Submit yourself to God
Resist the devil.
Draw nigh to God.
Cleanse your hands.
Purify your hearts.
Be afflicted and mourn.
Humble yourselves.
Turn to Christ in full self-surrender
Turn from your sins
Surrender heart, mind and will to Christ
Deny self
Take up your cross daily
Follow Christ
Refuse to associate any longer with the person you are
Be willing to give up all your earthly possessions if the Lord should ask this Be willing to give up as much as it takes
Slay yourself! Refuse to associate any longer with yourself, reject all the things your self longs and wants and hopes for. Be willing to die for the sake of Christ.”
Totally and absolutely deny self
Be willing to hate your father and mother
Be willing to dump all your earthly goods (possessions).
“The complete surrender of all possessions is the essence of salvation”
Give yourself totally to Him which involves self-denial, cross bearing and following Him in obedience
Deny yourself and give Him your life
Die to yourself
Obey the Sermon on the Mount
Leave all your possessions behind
Live in obedience and service to Christ as revealed in the Scriptures
These commands were disconcerting to John, and one which stood out was the one that said, "Be willing to give up all your possessions if Christ should ask."
"Wait a minute," John thought to himself. "What's going on? To be saved Christ asks some to give up all their possessions, but He doesn't ask others? That sounds like two ways of salvation."
Then John thought about his children. How could he tell them all this stuff that they need to do to be saved? How could they do all this, much less even understand all these complex commands, one even involving obeying the entire Sermon on the Mount?
The author of the books had an answer to that question regarding John's children--he told Mr. Bookman that they couldn't be saved because there's no way they could do or even understand all those commands. But this didn't make any sense to John because he remembered hearing that somewhere Jesus said to "permit the little children to come to Me" and that Jesus said that except you become like little children you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.
From all those weeks of reading, John was at his wit's end. The book's requirements were impossible to keep and even if he tried, he knew he'd be constantly haunted by the questions, "Have I done enough, all of them? Have done them long enough? What if I stop doing one, two, or three of them? Was I saved in the first place?"
It was then that Bookman asked God to show him how to be saved. He threw the books away and picked up The Book and turned to the Gospel of John where he learned that John wrote the book for people just like he was, confused and lost.
As he read what John wrote, he noted over and over and over, actually 99 times, John says that gaining eternal life and the forgiveness of sin comes from faith alone that Jesus is God, that Jesus died for John's sins, that Jesus rose from the dead and that if John will trust Him and Him alone, there it is, salvation.
He also read Acts 16: 31: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your household." He liked those words, "and your household." The gospel was so simple, his children could understand it. All those commands piled up in those three books, John now saw them for what they were, works that can never save anyone.
John Bookman, like the ancient jailer, had asked, "What must I do to be saved?" God had answered.
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