What saved you?

John 1:12-13
Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

This verse is part of John's powerful exhortation which opens his Gospel. He cuts to the chase and right of the bat he makes known the essence of salvation by what Jesus Christ did for us. We should learn from this. Surely John knew how important this writing was but when faced with the same challenge, our human tendencies would rather beat around the bush for a while to set up the conversation and find the "right time" to get to the real topic of the conversation.

Instead, John obviously invited the Holy Spirit to come out and boldly get to the heart of the matter. God's word spoke us into existence, his word became flesh to be with us, he was rejected, killed and rose again so that we could be born again into His family, all we have to do is believe that.

But he threw a twist in this verse... "nor of human decision." We often hear that if you say and believe the sinner's prayer in your heart, you are saved. But was it that very act what saved you? Did God save you because you stood up that fateful afternoon and walked up to the altar to profess your belief?

I heard a pastor explain this in the best and clearest way:

You were born into this world in a fallen sinful state. Now imagine this state described as you being born and waking up holding onto a branch protruding out of a cliff. Through your life you are holding on for dear life. You try to claw your way up the cliff in an effort to save yourself. In your struggles you get dirty, cut up and sometimes desperate.

Unbeknown to you, long before you were even born, Jesus said "It is finish." Now imagine that he said this as he placed a front end loader bucket perfectly underneath where you would eventually be born into.

Back to you, there you are, struggling, hanging on for dear life. Several things can happen to you:

• You could be struggling to save yourself and you loose your grip and fall.
• You look down, see the bucket and let go.
• You hear someone tell you, "let go, Jesus put a bucket underneath you, let go!"
• or you die hanging on to your life.

I also though of other things one might hear other people say while still hanging on to the branch:

• Look up five times a day and pray that God gives your the strength to climb the cliff
• This is all your imagination, you are not really holding onto a branch for dear life.
• Don't worry, when you die you will be reincarnated as a bug and you can then easily climb up the cliff.
• Just grab the other guy's ankle and climb over him, only the strong survive
  

Here is the ultimate question which points to the reality of our salvation and gets to the heart of understanding what John is saying in this verse:

Did you get saved because you let go of the branch or because Jesus put the bucket underneath you to catch and save you?