May 18

I had a long wait leaving Prescott, Arizona, but finally the right man came along. “I don’t know why I stopped,” he said. “You’re the first man I’ve ever picked up.” “Perhaps the Lord had something to do with it,” I replied. When I asked if he would like to be saved and know it, he exclaimed, “Just this week I went to see a preacher. I asked if he could tell me how to get right with God. He said, ‘Join my church and pay your tithes.’” I said, “It would have done you just as much good if you had joined the Elks and paid your dues. Salvation isn’t by joining or paying, but by believing and receiving. ‘The gift of God is eternal life’ (Rom 6:23).” It wasn’t long until this man trusted the Lord as his own Savior. Here is where the works gospel fails. It gets the prodigal a better job in the far country, and leaves him there. But the gospel of grace gets him back to the Father’s house, where there is “bread enough and to spare.” — George Watmough, Hitchhiking on Purpose, pp 38-39