I was doing my devotions this morning and something really struck me.

First let me back up a bit...I joined myspace about 2 years ago. I had made contact with a lot of my friends from school (high school and jr. high). In about September, I had decided that I no longer wanted to be on myspace. I had let everyone know via bulletins and my blog. I told everyone that I was going to quit at the end of the year because one of my "friends" was Read the Bible in a Year and that person had my reading assignments. Well as of the end of December, I finally unloosed my chains with myspace. Why did I do it? Well, the main reason was that I wanted to spend more time with my kids. The second reason is that I realized that most of my friends from high school, weren't very nice. One "friend" in particular was very critical of my beliefs in Jesus Christ. He would say little comments or send bulletins that I found VERY offensive about my Savior. He did a survey where he was supposed to tell people what he thought of them. His comment to me was "What you believe in is a lie and you will find out sooner or later". That made me sick. I don't need to be in that kind of environment. So I quit.

Ok, back to my devotions. This year instead of reading the Bible all the way through again, I decided to start a devotional book. I did a little searching and found one that was based on the Left Behind series: http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/easy_find?Ntk=keywords&Ntt=embracing+eternity&action=Search&N=0& I loved these books and so did my husband so I thought we could start this book. Today's devotion was titled "The Gift of Salvation". The author tells a story about going to yard sales and coming across a house that had cleaned up, but left a table out with some neatly folded towels and a sign saying "free please take". A mother and daughter were looking at the towels and the daughter made the comment that they could use those towels, but the mother just stared at them and eventually moved on. Why didn't she take them? They were free.

Wow, what a great illustration about how some people don't take God's gift of Salvation, Jesus Christ. It's so simple and it's free!! There's only one catch...you have to really believe. What stops people from accepting this gift? Is it pride or are they showing signs of weakness by believing in something? Honestly, I don't know the reasoning. We can't get to heaven by just being a "good person" or by doing good things.

That is not good enough for God. The only way to heaven is to be cleansed by the blood of the sacrificial Lamb, Jesus Christ. Through His suffering and conquering of death, we are good enough for God.

For something that is free and so easy, why do people choose the alternative? For me the choice was easy - eternity with my Father in heaven rather than eternal suffering.