WARNING: This blog could be hazardous to convictions that you have held about being saved. It represents some of my deepest thoughts and I held out publishing it for more than a year.
Many, if not most, Christians ascribe to what I call cookie cutter salvation. They believe that salvation occurs at a specific point, where they prayed specific prayers, backed by specific actions like walking down the aisle of a church during an invitation to receive Christ; perhaps they were at a local pub or a night club, or in a foxhole Vietnam when something happened that awakened their need for God and, at that point, they made a decision for Him and at that specific point, they got saved, i.e., they received Christ. Many Christians believe that salvation occurred, for them, at the point where they said the sinners prayer, or at the point where they obeyed Romans 10:9&10. Even I have testified about a specific place and time when I made a definite decision to receive Christ in my life and He saved me and there is no denying that it does happen in this way, i.e., the cookie cutter approach.
However, while I believe that one must believe, and one must receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, in order to be saved, I have seriously questioned the cookie cutter approach for everybody across the board. Sisther Vernice Howard, in an old Sunday School class, was honest enough to admit that she does not know when she got saved. She just looked up one day and she was trusting Christ. I suspect that her experience is not uncommon to the point of questioning my own cookie cutter testimony.
The reason I have questioned the cookie-cutter approach for everyone, across the board is because much of life is not cookie-cutter. It is a blend. Samanthat, on the, “Bewitched” sitcom, does not wiggle her nose and we are suddenly transported to California. Trips to California require a blended process. As a child, I learned to draw quite well. One day I drew a picture of a woman’s face and then I took some oils and I painted the face that I had drawn. As perfectly as the lines were drawn and painted, I could not figure out why it did not look real so I asked a girl who was majoring in art at her college and she told me that the reason it did not look as real as it could was because I did not blend the colors. Her advice opened the door to my ability to become a self-made artist as I learned to blend the colors in my pictures, because that is what life does. It blends. Monday blends and bleeds into Tuesday and Tuesday bleeds into Wednesday, lights blend into darkness, and sadness blends into joy blends and ignorance blends into intelligence. Nobody wakes up full-grown. Everywhere that we turn, life is a blend. Could it be that there are some who woke up one day and they were already saved, already trusting Christ without realizing that they did it?
When I roll the scroll of my mind over what I read in the Bible, I do not find anywhere that the disciples experienced this cookie-cutter salvaton. I know that they were saved. I know that Christ called some and they left their nets and followed Him. I know that they trusted Christ, but when they trusted Him is not always clear, i.e., not all of them. I know that Thomas put his finger in the nail prints in his hand and it was as if a light went on in his head, and he said, “My Lord and my God”, but Thomas was the exception and not the rule. It was not definitive when Paul trusted Him even on his Damascus road experience.
Let me get personal. I have always point to a dramatic night on Minnesota Avenue, 2835 Minnesota Avenue, in the city of Washington DC, to be exact, when I asked God to come into my life and at that point, I did experience a special realization of his presence and assurance. It was like a big turning point in my journey and the thought of that night still brings me great joy. But the joy of that night does not cancel out the fact that, many years before that experience, every since my parents and my pastors and sunday school teachers told me about Christ, I wanted Him in my life. My key point is that I wanted Him. My heart was open and ready to receive Him into my life even back then. I did not know how to do it but I know that I wanted Him. I had a child’s understanding. My heart was open to receive Him. I would later attend revivals with A.A. Allen, looking for God. I would watch Oral Roberts on TV, looking for God. I would listen to the Swan Silvertones, and the Dixie Hummingbirds, Gene Martin, enjoying God’s music.
Had God saved me back then and I was just on a path of growth that would one day lead me to that dramatice night on Minnesota Avenue? Could it be that I was already saved that night because God read my heart when I was a child but now this Minnesota Avenue experience gave me a clearer understanding of where I was headed?
Jerry Lebo helped to inspire this concept in me. He is an accomplished artist and he knew of my interest in art and he tried to help me in my artistic development. On the Internet he is known as the 60 minute Artist. He is also an extremely talented writer. He had me to draw a picture that I was interested in. Each time I drew it, he critiqued it. He actually destroyed the pictures that I drew. He re-drew it In nice neat little sections and then he tried to get me to draw it as a blend. He even blended the cookie cutter sections of the picture. Practically nothing in life is instant or cookie cutter. Even even instant coffee is not instant . Growth is not instant. Intelligence is not instant. It all blends. therefore it seems to me that salvation is a blend. Andy Griffith once said to his boy Opie who declared that he did not understand something and Andy replied, “You will come to it”.
The danger of the cookie-cutter approach is when we say things like he is black therefore he likes water melon or she is white therefore she thinks she is better than me and then corrective streams of events trickle into my life and destroy my cookie cutter mentality and I see life as a blend. Even the salvation process is part of that blend.
Finally, Saul was on the road to becoming Paul. He may have been on the road to Damascus but spiritually, he was on the road to Christ.
It is good to know Him. Getting to know Him further is a blend of Bible Studies, Church worship and various everyday experiences.
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