[:en]Last Friday I attended a funeral service.  The speaker shared his experience that over 30 years ago at the age of 35 he came to know Jesus after living a life of drug and alcohol dependency.  He said, the same day he invited Jesus to come into his life, all the craving suddenly disappeared.  He became a renewed man and today he is a Bible teacher whose passion is to share the message of salvation.

On the same day I received a prayer request from a mother whose adult son is in a deep hole—he has gambled away his money.  I happen to know this mother quite well.  I know how much she and her husband love their children and how they did their best to raise their children in the fear and the knowledge of the Lord.  Sometime ago she shared her praise to God because her son put to stop his gambling habit but now she learned that he still gambles—big time.

The older I get, the more often I find myself saying, “Salvation is a mystery.”  I don’t understand why someone who was addicted to drugs and alcohol for years could be freed from this disease in a day while someone else, raised in a Christian home and knew the Lord all his life, cannot take his hands off gambling table.  I simply don’t understand why for some it is so easy to come to faith in Jesus but for some others, it is so difficult.

Salvation is a mystery in that we don’t know how God works in our lives to bring us to Him and to make us grow in Him.  But, in that shrouded mystery I see Grace—God’s grace—at work.  Those who are instantly freed from whatever bondage they are in, receive grace. And, those who never stop struggling with whatever bondage they are in, also receive grace.  Both in the fast lane and the slow lane receive grace because without it they will not be in God’s lane.

Pastor Paul[:id](Maaf tidak ada terjemahan dalam bahasa indonesia)

Last Friday I attended a funeral service.  The speaker shared his experience that over 30 years ago at the age of 35 he came to know Jesus after living a life of drug and alcohol dependency.  He said, the same day he invited Jesus to come into his life, all the craving suddenly disappeared.  He became a renewed man and today he is a Bible teacher whose passion is to share the message of salvation.

On the same day I received a prayer request from a mother whose adult son is in a deep hole—he has gambled away his money.  I happen to know this mother quite well.  I know how much she and her husband love their children and how they did their best to raise their children in the fear and the knowledge of the Lord.  Sometime ago she shared her praise to God because her son put to stop his gambling habit but now she learned that he still gambles—big time.

The older I get, the more often I find myself saying, “Salvation is a mystery.”  I don’t understand why someone who was addicted to drugs and alcohol for years could be freed from this disease in a day while someone else, raised in a Christian home and knew the Lord all his life, cannot take his hands off gambling table.  I simply don’t understand why for some it is so easy to come to faith in Jesus but for some others, it is so difficult.

Salvation is a mystery in that we don’t know how God works in our lives to bring us to Him and to make us grow in Him.  But, in that shrouded mystery I see Grace—God’s grace—at work.  Those who are instantly freed from whatever bondage they are in, receive grace. And, those who never stop struggling with whatever bondage they are in, also receive grace.  Both in the fast lane and the slow lane receive grace because without it they will not be in God’s lane.

Pastor Paul[:]