Are You Sure?

“Mom, where is that old picture with me as a baby when we were at Disney World?” our son, Jamie, asked when he was here this week-end. To my puzzled look, he went on, “I see it every time I’m here. Where are your old photo albums?”

“Jamie, we didn’t take a picture like that at Disney World,” I insisted. “And I took all the album pictures and put them in boxes,” I explained. The old magnetic photo albums had deteriorated, turning the background pages yellow, but I was able to save the pictures.

Jamie spent an hour or so going through stacks of snapshots, occasionally bursting out in a loud guffaw, saying, “Look, Tammy,” to his wife, who always nodded appreciatively at whatever picture he held up. He was going down memory lane, something I always did when I used to visit at my mother’s house. I loved looking at her old family photos.

Later, I heard, “That’s it! I knew it was here,” as Jamie walked through the dining room. He had picked up a framed family picture sitting on a bookshelf.

“Is that what you meant? That wasn’t taken at Disney World!” I exclaimed. “That was taken at Grandma’s house in her yard. You were six months old when we went to Florida, and here you were a year-and-a-half.”

“Well, Greg is wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt," he said of his then 10-year-old brother, "so I always thought we were at Disney.” Just a wrong assumption that he had never thought to question.

We heard a stirring message at church yesterday about the second coming of our Lord. Part of the emphasis was on the fact that we cannot set dates, as someone has erroneously done recently. Nevertheless, the signs of His soon coming are apparent, as Jesus teaches in Matthew 24. Verse 14 says, “And this gospel shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” While every person in the world may not have heard the gospel, certainly it has gone to all nations.

We may assume that, because we go to church, or used to go to church, and made a commitment many years ago, that we are bound for Heaven. But Revelation 16:15 warns us, “Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.” We have to stay in relationship with Him, and “keep” our garments. We are to be clothed in His righteousness, our garments unspotted from the world. Some wrong assumptions are harmless, but one when it comes to salvation, it doesn’t pay to make wrong assumptions.