Don't Get Burned

When I was a little girl learning to cook, I would often get careless and burn myself. I might have touched a hot pan, or stood to close to the oven door, and there you have it, I had burned myself. My mom would use this opportunity to say, "See how much that hurts? That is just a tiny taste of what it will feel like if you don't be a good girl and you go down to the devil." Okay guys, I know that is a horrible thing to say to a child, and completely un-biblical, but she did her very best as a mother. I love her more than anything for the loving parent she was despite the funny things she would say to get me to straighten up. However, this little girl grew up to believe that being a good girl was what God wanted, and would be the catalyst to get me to heaven. I asked Christ in my heart at a young age, but never really understood that it was all about a personal relationship with Christ until many years later.

At 19, I realized that I was in need of a personal savior and that it didn't matter how good I tried to be, I would never be good enough to get into heaven. I confessed I was a sinner to God, I acknowledged that Jesus died on the cross for my sins and rose again, and believed that I would one day live in Heaven with Christ forever. At this time, even though I had began a relationship with Christ, I still lived as a person who had not really changed. Then 5 more years passed, I was married and FINALLY a light bulb went off. I knew I was going to heaven all along, but now I wanted to really know God and to have the relationship I knew He had waiting for me all along. I started studying the bible, and really reading it. It was so hard to understand and often a bit boring. Everyone around me seem to get it, but I struggled big time. I had excellent teachers and mentors who led me through the next 10 years, sharing all they knew and encouraging me along the way. I absolutely fell in love with the Word of God-I cannot get enough of it now. I have to constantly be in a study of some sort. I crave it like nothing I've ever craved before. God has allowed me to also see countless lives changed through his goodness and love during this unbelievable christian walk of mine.

Tonight as I was pulling the lasagna out of the oven, I burned myself pretty bad. My girls were both in the kitchen with me and wanted to see what the loud, "OW!" was all about. I showed them my red arm, and I actually started to smile remembering my mother's words. See my smile comes from the fact that both my girls don't hear words like I did. They both know Christ and they are having the relationship that it took me 25 years to start. I don't know why, but this experience tonight brought back to memory that scared little girl that I used to be. The little girl who didn't know if she was going to heaven when she died. She knew she had done some things that God wouldn't like, and it was always a thought for her that she might not be good enough. It also made me wonder how many of my friends reading this often feel like that scared little girl. Am I good enough to go to heaven? Friends, I once knew that feeling too, and it is not a good way to live.

You can be assured right now of your salvation forever and ever. Do what I did and turn your life over to Christ. Find a church where you can grow and fellowship with others. Don't wait and let time slip by as I did. I promise you Jesus is more thrilling and amazing than anything this world has to offer, and your life will be forever changed. God created you, he loves you, and he is anxiously waiting for you to come to Him. I'm praying for you!

Romans 10:9-10 "If you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved."

John 3:16 says: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life."