Saturday, August 25, 2018
Dancing With God
It
was a life-saving dance of sorts that unfolded on July 13, 2018, as the pilot
of a Chinook helicopter hovered dramatically near the slope of Oregon’s 11,240-foot
Mount Hood. With incredible skill the pilot maneuvered the aircraft so that two
wheels touched down on the side of the mountain so rescuers could drop a ramp and
exit and enter the helicopter as they rescued a man who had apparently planned
to commit suicide, but then changed his mind.
According
to Global News, “The rescue was triggered after a
27-year-old climber in distress called for help on Thursday afternoon... But he
didn’t answer his phone when officials with the Clackamas County Sheriff’s
office tried to return his call. Searchers managed to track his phone call to
Mount Hood’s summit. A search and rescue team took some time to find the man,
locating him when it wasn’t safe to escort him off the mountain...The rescuers
had to lower themselves to all fours in order to avoid the chopper’s rotors.”
So,
the dance went something like this:
·
The
climber put himself in danger.
·
Recognizing
his plight, he called for help.
·
The
rescue team traced the climbers call and came to where he was.
·
A
helicopter was dispatched to the scene.
·
With
the help of the rescue team the climber entered the chopper and was airlifted
to safety.
The
climber could not save himself. Without a search and rescue team the climber
may have perished. However, if the climber had not called for help and cooperated
with the rescuers, he may have perished. So the climber would not have been
saved without reaching out and cooperating. He was saved by the coast guard through
his cooperation.
Human
beings are rescued from sin and eternal destruction in much the same way. There
is a dance that goes on. God provides the grace and man provides the faith. God
gives grace and power, believers trust and obey. Grace is what God provides, faith is man’s response.
God leads… man follows.
This
topic has been discussed and written about for centuries, but there are two
scriptures that sum it up nicely:
·
Ephesians
2:8 KJV: For
by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is
the gift of God:
·
James 2:17
NIV: In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied
by action, is dead.
Salvation is not an event, it is a
dance. It is a place of safety based on
one’s relationship with The Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
A believer’s dance with God goes something
like this:
·
With
God’s help, a person recognizes they need saving.
·
Recognizing
their plight, they call for help.
·
The
rescue team (God and his people) track down the person in need and go to where they
are.
·
God
dispatches angels, His word and His people to the scene to lead them to
salvation.
·
With
the help of the rescue team the believer repents of sin, washes those sins away
in baptism and is empowered to live free by the infilling of God’s Spirit
God
leads, we follow. Then we dance with him all the way to heaven!
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