Just Say It  

    "That just goes to show you what good Christians are for!” John said.  “Before Jim left the Agency, he came to me and bad mouthed Regina.  He said that she would never be able to replace him as system’s manager.  Several years ago he complained about David to the point that I finally had him transferred to another department.  That’s been twelve years ago and maybe, just maybe I was wrong for doing so.  I think Jim was just a complainer - and a no good Christian.  I thought Christians weren't supposed to act like that."

    John was a very intelligent, witty man who was chief of the computer department at my Agency.  The department, as well as the whole Agency, was going through many changes and stress levels were soaring.  Employees were vying for positions at almost all costs.   John was doing the best he could to bring together a unit of inexperienced individuals to form a team of programmers, operators and managers.  All efforts on his part pretty much fell apart as well as did many subsequent projects - due mostly to our bickering and jealousy.  I jokingly blamed it on the fact that we were mostly all women.   

    Jim, the chief programmer, was retiring after serving for nearly 30 years.  Regina, a very hard working and devoted employee, had assisted Jim for many years.  Although she had very little programming experience, Regina felt that she deserved the job.  John was willing to give her that chance.  Jim strongly believed that John should hire a person with much more “programming” experience to take over the system.  

    Jim had always been a very quiet hard working person who also had a hearing impediment.  He kept to himself most of the time.  In fact, many employees in the small four-story building of around one hundred did not even recognize him.  Nearly everyone who came into contact with Jim, however, liked him immediately.  Although quiet, I believe due to his hearing deficit, Jim had a great smile and a laugh that was just wonderful to hear and watch as he seemed to jiggle all over.  In all of his thirty years, I am very certain that his complaints were very few and far between.  Not nearly as many as the subsequent team of programmers had laid upon the ears of their dear Chief in the next couple of years.  

    I was new to the department and being somewhat reserved myself I did not respond to John's Christian bashing as I should have.  The thoughts were there but the tongue would not respond.  I have a little trouble vocalizing my feelings anyway and just sloughed it off.  What I really needed to do was help John realize that Christians are not perfect, even older ones.  People just seem to expect them to be so, and indeed they should strive to become perfect.  It just doesn't fully happen until we meet Jesus face to face.   

    A Christian is an imperfect person who becomes in all his imperfection a saved individual.  Like the old song states "Just as I am without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me. And that Thou bidst me come to Thee, Oh Lamb of God I come, I come."  A Christian comes unto God in the very state that he is in, no better or worse in His eyes than any other person on earth.  Jesus' blood was shed for every single individual who ever has and who ever will be born.  When a person says "yes" to Jesus - when he says "Jesus, I am a sinner and I am lost for eternity without your grace and salvation, please forgive me, help me to trust you," this person becomes reborn as a Christian.   

    Just as newborn babies know very little about the world in which they have been born into, the newborn Christian has a limited knowledge of how to continue to walk in his new life.  The Bible talks about babes in Christ Jesus and how they need to grow.  By the nurturing of our parents, we were taught how to act as children and to grow into adulthood and to become responsible adults.  Christians, by the teaching of  their newfound Father and of the Spirit and of the Living Word (the Bible), are to begin growing up into spiritual adulthood.  Some Christians grow faster and some slower but all do grow according to God's will and plan for them.  Perfection, although, comes only at the end of this life.   

    Although Christ suffered very much by giving his life on the cross to bear each and every person's sins, He still gives to us a very great gift for just trusting in Him.  To those that believe, He gives to them the Gift of Eternal life.  

    I believe that John would have listened but I don't know that he would have heard what I had to say.  The bottom line is - I should have said it.  

    The wages of sin is death; but the Gift of God is Eternal Life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 6:23).

Your Decision to Receive Christ as Your Savior:

     Confess to God that you are a sinner.  Believe that the Lord Jesus Christ died for your sins on the cross and was raised for your justification.  Receive and Confess Him as your personal Savior.   

Assurance As a Believer:

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved (Romans 10:9).

© 1988 G. R. Workman   

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