by Jeremy Paschall
Three engineers and three managers went to a conference and had to travel by train to get there. At the station, the three managers bought their three tickets and watched as the three engineers bought only a single ticket. “How are three people going to travel on only one ticket?” asked a manager. “Just watch and you’ll see,” answered an engineer.
They all boarded the train and the managers took their seats and watched as all three engineers crammed into a restroom and closed the door behind them. The train departed and shortly afterward, the conductor came around collecting tickets. He knocked on the restroom door and said, “Ticket, please.” The door opened just a crack and a single arm emerged with a ticket in hand. The conductor took it and moved on.
The managers saw all this and agreed it was quite a clever idea. So after the conference, the managers decided to copy the engineers on the return trip and save some money. When they got to the station, they bought a single ticket for the return trip. But to their astonishment, the engineers didn’t buy a ticket at all.
“How are you going to travel without a single ticket?” asked one manager. “Just watch and you’ll see,” answered an engineer.
They boarded the train. The three managers crammed into a restroom compartment and the three engineers crammed into an another one nearby. The train departed. Shortly afterward, one of the engineers left his restroom, walked over to the managers’ stall, knocked on the door and said, “Ticket, please.”
“Something for nothing” is an appealing prospect, isn’t it? Our eyes are drawn to sale advertisements that read, “Buy one, Get one FREE”. Our hearts beat faster when we get those “You may have won…” notifications in our mailboxes. We fill-out and send in registration cards hoping to win that shiny new convertible.
The apostle Paul describes the grace of God, expressed in the life and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, as a free gift (Romans 5:12-19). Certainly we have done nothing to earn or purchase such a wonderful blessing. And that’s all that most preachers want to talk about — the love of God, His grace towards us, and the free gift of His Son. Those are certainly wonderful Bible subjects that need to be taught, but I am afraid we often forget, as Paul Harvey would say, “the rest of the story”.
Whenever you receive the phone call interrupting supper, they are calling to tell you about the free gift you will receive and that you will be registered for the grand prize of $1,000,000… if you subscribe to their magazine for the next five years. To enter the sweepstakes for the new car, you have to put a stamp on the registration card and mail it. There is always effort required on your part to receive the “free” offer.
But many preachers never get around to telling their audiences about sacrifices they might have to make or work they might have to do to be a child of God. According to them, a person can just sit back, do nothing, and accept the free gift of God. But that’s not what Jesus said:
“If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” (Matthew 16:24)
You might be thinking, There’s always a catch. But God isn’t like a telemarketer — He has told us what He expects of us right from the beginning, and we can make the choice whether we will accept His offer or not. But before you “hang up the phone” on God, realize this — unlike the free gift the telemarketer offers you, you really do need God’s free gift.
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.” (Romans 5:8-9)