Am I too far lost to be saved?

That depends on your point of view. Are you looking at it from your standpoint or are you looking at it the way God looks at it?

From a human viewpoint, we’d probably conclude that we are too far lost to be saved. We don’t like hopeless causes. We are reluctant to keep throwing good money and time into a bottomless pit. If it is too much of a stretch, if there’s too much damage to undo, if there is too much effort that will be needed day after day to get someone to heaven, I think we’d sometimes say that person (maybe it is us!) is too far lost to be saved.

But God doesn’t look at things like that. He doesn’t look at our liabilities. He looks at his possibilities. With God, all things are possible.

Over and over again God emphasizes his love and forgiveness to all people. Jesus showed this even in his choice of disciples. One of his followers, Matthew, had been a tax collector, working for the hated Romans. He had been kicked out of the synagogue long ago. As he sat in his tax booth collecting money for the Roman occupation forces, teachers in the synagogue would often come by and tell him he was going to hell. “Don’t even bother coming to worship—it’s not going to do you any good, because you’re going to hell; you are too far lost to be saved.” The only people who would associate with Matthew were other tax collectors and prostitutes. The beaten and the damned—that was his gang.

Then one day Jesus showed up and told Matthew, “Follow me.” Matthew did. He dumped that dead-end job for one that offered heavenly benefits. Matthew was excited that someone, instead of telling him he was going to hell, told him that God loved him and had a spot in heaven waiting for him. He was so excited that he wanted his friends to meet Jesus, too, but the only way he could get them to take time out to talk to a “religious” person was to throw his own going away party! (Matthew 9:9-13)

They all got to talk with Jesus, even though the same people who had delighted in telling Matthew he was going to hell now turned their nose up at Jesus for stooping to talk to the beaten and the damned.

It’s not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick. Our God is so filled with love and mercy that he seeks out the sick, those who feel they are too far lost to be saved. For with God, no one is too far lost to be saved.

Read these Bible verses to affirm God’s love for you!

• Galatians 2: 20
• Romans 5:5
• Romans 5:8
• John 15:13