© 2013 by Tom Boynton (editing by Kathy Boynton)

I knew a young man who attended our Christian fellowship. My son played softball with him. One day he was working in a pit on a construction job. It caved in on top of him and he was buried alive. I never got to ask him how long he had spent there, or whether there had been moments of panic during which he attempted to escape.

The Bible tells us we are all born into a spiritual pit of sin. Satan’s deception and distractions keep many of us playing in the mud at the bottom of the pit, unaware of impending doom. Sometimes, however, God’s Word arouses the conscience of some of us pit dwellers and we become aware of the eternal disaster that awaits us if we are not rescued in time.

Others try climbing out of this pit themselves. As they claw their way up its slippery sides, they repeatedly find themselves sliding back, exhausted, to its muddy bottom. Only someone from outside the pit will ever be able to get them out.

Are you laboring to climb from your spiritual pit toward Heaven, only to discover you cannot control your own selfish instincts? Do you repeatedly slide back, in defeat, to the sinful slime of its muddy bottom? The Bible says, “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all (James 2:10).” Does this standard of perfection leave you feeling hopeless?

If so, there’s good news! God has brought you to the very condition of heart necessary for your salvation! Jesus said, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance (Luke 5:32).” God the Son, Jesus Christ, came to pay the price of redeeming sinners from eternal death. He died an agonizing and bloody death on the cross of Calvary to free repentant sinners from their hopeless condition. He calls out to all pit dwellers saying, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28).”

Will you continue your futile efforts to earn salvation, or will you trust Christ, repent of your sins, and join the redeemed, saying, “He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings (Psalms 40:2)”?

 

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