I've met and become friends with hang-gliders, the folks who jump off cliffs with plastic wings strapped to their arms; downhill skiers, who scream down mountain race courses at 90 miles an hour; sailors who've crossed the Pacific in boats only an arm's length longer than Calypso; extreme skiers and paragliders who scoff at the idea that Mont Blanc is "death capital of the world."
Some folks call them extreme sports enthusiasts; some folks call them dare devils; some folks call them crazy. But nobody can argue that they're stupid.
I think that's because all of them, from hang-gliders to offshore sailors to extreme skiers, share one fundamental thing in common: none of them designs and builds their own gear. Sailors don't trust their lives to homemade liferafts, paragliders don't stitch together their own aircraft with a glue gun, downhill racers don't core their own fiberglass skis and paragliders don't wear helmets put together with spare pots from the kitchen cabinet.
The consequences are just too high ... and undeniably permanent, too.
----------
Yet when it comes to death and salvation, lots of folks are competitors in the sport of extreme living, determined to live life according to their own whims and supremely confident of their ability to fathom eternity and to negotiate and manufacture their own salvation ... while remaining oblivious of and indifferent to the one consideration that matters most:
How can I be sure, and know beyond any doubt, that what I put together is gonna work?
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him.
- John 3:36
how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him.
- Hebrews 2:3
If I had not done among them what no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen these miracles, and yet they have hated both me and my Father.
- John 15:24
