significant. We can relate to him only as a fairy tale character who was taught a lesson. Then we can go to bed telling ourselves that we learned from his example, and we can tuck that lesson into our bibles, say our prayers, and sleep peacefully, with visions of sugar plums dancing in our heads. Somehow we have done this to most of the Bible lessons. If we can remove our lives from the Bible lives, they cannot touch us. We are accustomed to getting an injection of a dead flu virus, so that our bodies learn what it is we are fighting, if and when the real live virus invades us. Like this, we trick our minds into believing that sin and selfishness and worshipping other gods is a dead problem; it was only a problem for those people in Palestine in Jesus’ day, but certainly not our problem. We inoculate ourselves with Bible stories so that if and when the real problem of sin invades our lives, we are prepared to recognize it and kill it. I am here to tell you today, the real thing is here. Sin and selfishness is not something in story books from Palestine; it lives among us and threatens our hope for eternal life. Christian, you may go about wondering if you are really saved; really have a placed reserved in heaven; really living as a true follower of Jesus. In Luke 19: 9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. 10For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.” Do I really need saving? C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) wrote: I would pay any price to be able to say truthfully, "All will be saved." But my reason retorts, "Without their will, or with it?" If I say, "Without their will," I at once perceive a contradiction; how can the supreme voluntary act of self-surrender be involuntary? If I say, "With their will," my reason replies, "How if they will not give in?"

2 Cor. 6: 2For he says, “At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.” See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! And I am here to say, “today, this hour, salvation is being offered to you. Do not harden your hearts, but listen, and believe.” Saint Augustine , early church father who lived from (354-430), said: “He who created us without our help will not save us without our consent.” God asks today, are you ready to be sure that you are in, that you are saved, that you have a place reserved for you in heaven, and that you are truly following in Jesus’ footsteps while you are here in this life on earth? Have you gone from darkness to light, or are you only stumbling around to a night light with a 2 watt bulb? Do you have the power of godliness, or just the form of godliness, living as a 92 pound spiritual weakling, without any real spiritual power to change lives? Are you enjoying his grace every day, by investing what God has trusted you with, or are you squandering his fortune of eternal life? Do you take your faith for granted? Do you believe you will be saved no matter what you do in this life, because God is good? Do you believe you are saved, because you are good? A large prosperous downtown church had three mission churches under its care that it had started. On the first Sunday of the New Year all the members of the mission churches came to the city church for a combined Communion service. In those mission churches, which were located in the slums of the city, were some outstanding cases of conversions--thieves, burglars, and so on--but all knelt side by side at the Communion rail. On one such occasion the pastor saw a former burglar kneeling beside a judge of the Supreme Court of England--the judge