You cruise around the Monopoly board, buying property, paying bills, greedily getting rich and bankrupting your neighbour, and then this:

Go to jail.  Rats.  $50 to get out — unless you have this card:

If you have that, you are free and clear to continue your financial mayhem. 🙂

***

Some years back, you prayed a prayer, walked an aisle, or stood up when they said to, and so you got saved.  Deep inside, you know nothing changed.  Trust Christ to save you from sin?  You quite enjoy your sins, and want to keep at them.  It’s nice being saved, no worries about Hell.  If you get feeling guilty, you remind yourself:  “I’ve got a GET OUT OF HELL FREE card!” — you are free and clear to continue your spiritual mayhem.

You don’t want to spend time with the Lord, His Word, His people.  You might go to church (or you may not bother), but if you do read your Bible, it is mere intellectual interest, not to know God and follow Him.  You may live morally (if it helps you get what you want), you may like discussing religious controversies, but honestly, spiritual things leave you cold.  The only real “evidence” of your faith, if you admit it to yourself, is that card — the GET OUT OF HELL FREE card you picked up a few years back.

II Corinthians 5:17

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

That verse is awkward, because this “new creature” thing hasn’t happened with you.  But if anyone challenges you, you’ve got the card!  “Oh, sure, I got saved at Pastor What’s-His-Name’s church.  And they said ‘once saved means you are always saved!'”

Uncomfortable Truth of the Day
Never saved at all means you still aren’t saved at all

Salvation — More Than a Card

God didn’t give His Son merely to reduce Hell’s census count.  Jesus’ death on the cross purchased more than a GET OUT OF HELL FREE card.  Salvation is not a mere insurance policy against Hell-fire.  True salvation changes you, making you new.  Did you miss that “born again” means a new life?

Salvation is about God loving you and you loving Him, about being His child and living like it.  All things became new.  Hearing His voice, doing His will, seeking and serving Him, walking and working with Him — if you don’t want any of that, if nothing changed, then something is deeply, horribly wrong, and it’s time for some vital questions:

“Did I really become new in Christ?  Are all things new — did anything become new?  Am I a fraud, waving my GET OUT OF HELL FREE card as if it will help?  Did I trust a spoken formula to save me from Hell, or did I trust Christ to save me from sin?  Was I just seeking a ‘fire escape’?  Am I in the true faith at all, or just holding a card and playing a game?”

II Corinthians 13:5

Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith