I stared at my best friend.
My best friend who's persecuted me ever since I came to know the Lord. My best friend who said he wanted the old, sinful me back. My best friend who hated Jesus.
But also, he's now the best friend who just professed that he became a Christian during our last lecture.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Calum asked, his lip curled into a side-smile.
"Who are you and what did you do to Calum Freeman?" I asked.
He laughed and tackled me into a hug. "I am Calum Freeman, dude! A free man!"
I stared in pure bewilderment at Trey beside me. He gave me a confused shrug as well.
"Don't you recognize me?" Calum asked, finally pulling away his bear-hug.
I arranged my hair and straightened my shirt. "Yeah, of course. But... you're a Christian now."
He smiled proudly. "Sure am. I accepted Jesus into my heart last night."
Trey turned to me, looking shocked and confused at the same time. I shared the same emotion.
"That's... great then," I finally choked out, laughing nervously.
Calum started, "Look, I know it's kinda hard to believe--"
"Yeah, it sure is." I said.
"--but you yourself said the Lord can save anyone. And I'm now saved."
"That is also true." I said.
He spread his arms as if he expected another hug and grinned. "So? Aren't you going to welcome me now into your arms, brother in Christ?"
I smiled, admittedly still confused, but hugged him right then and there.
"Welcome to the family, brother," Trey smiled and hugged the guy too.
Calum looked around the garage sale and his eyes lit up. "Religious Girl is here too?"
"Meredith?" I said, kind of irritated that he used that kind of nickname on her.
"Yeah, her." Calum chuckled. "That's so cool."
"Yeah," I said dryly.
"So, tell us, what's your story?" Trey asked. He sounded really excited.
"Story?" Now it was Calum who looked confused.
"You know, your testimony from darkness to Light!" Trey answered gleefully.
"Oh, that. I mean, I feel so much better now that I know Jesus is in my heart and I'm going to heaven when I die." He said.
Trey hesitated for a moment. Then he gave him a sheepish smile. "Okay. That's great, then."
"Yeah!" Calum said. "Could I join you guys here? You know, help out with the garage sale, and also get to know you guys better? And your ministry?"
"Sure, why not." I said. All the while shooting Trey an uncertain look.
****************************************************
"I think Calum will only become a Christian when pigs can fly and crows turn white," I said.
Trey rolled his head back laughing. Meredith smiled and shook her head.
"Nobody's too hard for the cross of Christ," she commented.
"I guess Calum's an exception then," I said, snickering. Trey laughed hard again.
"But in all seriousness, where is he now anyway? He said he'll be here. I told him we were going to start teaching him how to share his faith with people, and even how to strengthen his relationship with God." Meredith said, looking at the analog clock right above our heads.
I frowned and looked out the window, watching high school kids head for their homes.
"There are no baseball practices today," Trey said, "so I wasn't able to see him today. We don't have the same classes."
"We do, but there wasn't any time to talk to him, he was rushing for who knows what today." I said. And it was true. Every time I tried to approach Calum in three of our classes, he was always out as soon as class was dismissed. And I'd have no idea where to look for him. I tried to look for him in the places he always used to hang around in, but he was nowhere in sight.
"That's a bummer, I was so excited to disciple him," Meredith made a frowny face. Alex touched her shoulder and gave her a sympathetic smile.
"I guess we'll have to start heading home now then," Alex glanced at her watch. "We still have to do some school work and get ready for the next lecture that's coming in a couple weeks."
"Yes, and this one's gonna be bloody," Meredith noted. "It's going to be personal and unapologetic."
"Just like the true Gospel of Christ," Trey said. I nodded in agreement.
***************************
Heading for home, I drove down Gravel Boulevard. I was craving for some Chick-fil-A, and this was the best shortcut there is in all of Clarkdale. What I didn't like about this side of town, though, was the strip clubs, the vape shops, tattoo parlors, and all those worldly hedonistic things.
And then I thought of a grand idea. Why don't I witness here? I thought excitedly. Of course the thought was fearful, witnessing to such people, but also, if not I, who would?
I remembered the passage from Romans chapter ten, verse fourteen to fifteen: How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"
As I observed the lot, observing the people I would have to encounter in my witnessing in the near future, I saw a sight I didn't want to behold.
I saw Calum Freeman, the one who proclaimed he was a freed man, with two of the guys from the baseball team, talking to girls who wore really short skirts and tank tops. One guy from the team, Randy Clifford, smoking weed. I knew what weed looked like, I had tried it a year before.
My hands gripped the steering wheel. I felt anger rise to my chest.
And here he was, proclaiming he was a freed man, I thought.
But without much thought, out of the urgency of my heart, I parked my pickup at a nearby curb and started storming towards Calum and Randy and this other guy from the baseball team named Cleveland.
"Calum?" I said. "What do you think you're doing here?"
Calum looked so stunned. And stoned. "C-C-Charlie? What the heck are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be in church or something?"
"What? It's a Monday." I snapped. "What in the world are you doing here with these strippers and weed-smokers?"
"Hey!" Randy snapped, looking offended while holding up his weed cigarette.
"You said you're a Christian now!" I said, gritting my teeth. "How can you say that and do these things? These are the very things that nailed our Lord Jesus Christ to the cross! By professing you are a Christian and still live in sin, is like nailing Him back on the cross again! It's like saying what He did wasn't enough!
"But He is enough. I know that for a fact because I'm still here and alive in Christ. What He did on the cross is still in effect on me even to this day. What He did is enough.
"Your sin is the only thing that destroyed you, blinded your mind, and kept you from the Truth. And now that you have found the Truth, do you just set it aside for these kinds of works? Do you not handle it with such care, do you not give it with so much importance that you preach it to others? And how can you preach to others when you yourself don't even do it?"
"Hey! I accepted Jesus into my heart. And I'm still a work in progress!" Calum fended.
I shook my head. "This isn't progress. In fact, I don't think He's started any progress with you at all. Progress is from Latin progressus 'an advance', from the verb progredi, from pro- 'forward' + gradi 'to walk'.
"You haven't moved forward. You stayed where you have always been. In sin.
"Besides, you don't just accept Jesus. You repent and turn from all sin and trust that He's the only one who can make you want to do righteousness. And His Spirit is the only One who can give you the desire to and act righteously. Sin is so serious and offensive in the sight of a holy God that He won't even hesitate to damn you to hell for it. And sin has definitely no place in God's Kingdom."
And then I added, "So no. You're not a Christian. You're as lost as everyone else in here."
The strippers and the guys from the baseball team looked at me so confusedly.
"It's not enough to just know there is a God, you have to make the decision to follow Him too." I said, and I walked away.
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A/N
(Galatians 2:11-21)
"Paul Opposes Cephas"
11 When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. 13 The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.
14 When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, "You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?
15 "We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles 16 know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.
17 "But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we Jews find ourselves also among the sinners, doesn't that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! 18 If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a lawbreaker.
19 "For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"