The great thing about Jesus is His amazing, saving grace.
I had been working on our computers trying to make them synchronise. Suddenly after investing hours of work on this thing the computer crashes, and I have lost everything!
Here I am putting my heart into a project. I’m feeling a bit guilty because I know it is more mine than God’s. Life steps in, and this thing unprotected and tenuous falls apart. In this case it was a computer system, but I have seen it with prized possessions, relationships, activities, things at work or things at church. When things go wrong like this, I end up looking oblivion in the face. I have allowed my heart to be attached to this thing, and so it is precious, its failure hurts.
This is often the point that I finally remember to look to Jesus and ask Him for His salvation. Not as some mechanistic process: ‘Press the salvation button and see Jesus jump!’ That would suggest that I am Jesus’ master. The start point has to be complete surrender. I have to begin by surrendering this thing to such a point that I am content if Jesus takes it away. Indeed, sometimes He does! Only when it is dead in my heart can I say it has been through the fire; that it has been placed on the altar. Then I can ask Jesus for mercy. Then I can bring it to Him as His and ask Him to save it.
The Lord Jesus takes this thing that my heart had attached itself to, and breaths His life and His salvation into it. It moves from being something I have coveted, boasted about, looked for value from. He makes it something that brings life to other people; that encourages people to lift up their eyes and see that there is more to life than their small existence. He makes it fruitful.