The Offer Still Stands
A long time ago, when I had to budget every dime, I clipped a lot of coupons. I organized them by the layout of my favorite store and tried to pull out and use the ones that were expiring soon. Every once in a while, you’d find one with no expiration date, but those were not the norm, harder to come by and highly treasured. You can’t hardly find paper coupons anymore, everything is digital and none of them are without expiration. They may last longer than the weekly sales ad, but not by much.
There is a church in our community called Harvest Baptist, but the bigger lettering on their sign says “The Offer Still Stands.” Until I looked it up online, I truly thought that “The Offer Still Stands” was the name of their church…that’s how small the Harvest Baptist font is beneath it. Either way, as I saw it today for the millionth time, I felt like the Holy Spirit was telling me that God’s offer for us NEVER expires; it’s good for yesterday, today and tomorrow, it’s guaranteed and it’s as easy to redeem as handing a checker a coupon.
Another visual I get is two companies merging together and there is an offer on the conference table and as the two corporations haggle over the logistics, one may counter and say, “the offer still stands.” With God’s offer, there’s no hidden agenda, no hoops to jump through…just a straight-forward offer for all His children.
What’s the offer, you ask? Salvation and eternal life. From the moment you’re old enough to understand who God is until the day you die, the offer still stands. After you’ve messed your life up and you’ve hit rock bottom, the offer still stands. So, how do you take advantage of this everlasting offer? You repent of your sins; you ask God to forgive you and help you to forgive others. You recognize that Jesus died on the cross for you and that He resurrected from the grave and is alive today. Then, you invite Him into your life by believing in Him and allowing Him to have control over you. That may seem long written out like that, but it can be as easy as a simple prayer, and the rest is a work in progress until the day He calls you home. Any believer can attest to that!
On some coupons, there was sometimes some “fine print” that described what was or was not included with the discount. Even though God’s offer “still stands,” there is some fine print that you should read. There may be no expiration date on His offer of salvation, but YOU have an expiration date and there is an expiration date for this world. Jesus is coming back one day and whether that is before or after your earthly expiration, you better be prepared by accepting God’s offer as soon as possible. I’ll let you read for yourself the fine print of what happens if you don’t.