Have you ever watched a movie or read a good book that shows the main character going through overwhelming struggles and found yourself in tears? I know I have, and even though guys are suppose to be tough and not cry I can’t help but to relate to the struggle with the character and find tears running down my cheeks. What’s more is I relate to others in life the same way. I believe that every human being on this planet that has a heart beating in his or her chest feels the same way. Oh I know, some people are gruff and don’t wear their heart on their shirt sleeve and there are even some that have grown cold because life has beaten them up pretty badly. But for the most part people relate to the struggles of others and feel their pain. Why is that I wonder…? Seems like life would be a whole lot easier if we could be a little colder in our hearts and be able to just move on without caring all that much… then again that would make us more like robots that are incapable of feeling… feeling the love for a child and from that child, or hearing the words “I love you” from that special man or woman in our lives… or feeling the grief of losing a loved one or a friend. No… I don’t think being cold or heartless or not having feelings is a better way. I believe we all long to love and be loved. We love to see the little guy win and cheer when we see the underdog overcome. This desire drives all people everywhere. It drives the Muslim to blowing himself or herself up for the approval of a far away god. It drives a heartbroken lover to commit suicide or a jealous lover to murder. It has driven lunatics to genocide and countries to war over the smallest misunderstandings. However, it is not all bad…it drives men to find cures for disease. It drives us to build hospitals and to care for the elderly. It drives us to end wars and to find peace among our neighbors. It drives a brother to give a kidney to a sister and for mothers to give birth to babies. It also drives a man to ask the woman he loves to spend the rest of her life with him and it drives her to say “YES!” believing that her Prince Charming has just swept her off her feet and that their life together will be like a storybook fairytale. It is only after the realities of life have jaded us that we become a little colder, a little bitter, and a little uncaring. For some of us we become so cold, bitter and uncaring that even the most precious things in life become distant and meaningless.
We often look at the atrocities of the world and ask, “Where is God?” We conclude that obviously there is no God or if there is He is inept. We see things like little children being brutally raped and murdered. Husbands killing wives and their children. We see high school and college kids going on shooting sprees killing their peers. History has given us men like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and Saddam Hussein that kill thousands and even millions without remorse. We have even seen the atrocities such as the Crusades and the Inquisition that brutally murdered thousands with the blessing of the government and done in the name of God. Where is God…? Does He care or is he incompetent? America boasts that 80% of its citizens are Christian, yet the whole world sees us as hypocrites. Muslims consider us the “Great Satan” while referring to there historical enemy Israel as the “Little Satan”. America has the highest rate of murder, rape, theft, pornography, abortion and gambling in the whole world… that doesn’t sound like a Christian nation to me… how about you? What’s worse is we see holier than thou Christians looking down their long noses at people they consider the dregs of society feeling as if they are secure in their place in the hereafter. Why does God allow such suffering? Doesn’t He see the brokenness of His creation? Does He even care?
I have taken much time to write on this blog the necessity of salvation. I have shown that the lost are like a blind person walking toward a cliff… the cliff is death, yet the blind man doesn’t believe he is about to walk over a cliff to certain death… so he is taken by the seeing to the edge of the cliff where ten rocks are dropped so that he can hear the crash of the rocks down below. The rocks are God’s Ten Commandments that we will be judged by on the Day of Judgment. Our blind person now sees his desperate need for a Savior and cries out “Save me!” I have made such efforts because I know the urgency in telling people the Truth… I see the urgency of getting that Truth to lost souls before they are judged by their sins that will lead to death in hell. Nevertheless, this death will not extinguish life but will be an eternal process of everlasting torment. So as I’ve already asked… does God care, can He not see our brokenness? Some may be saying to themselves… how can God allow such suffering and then punish us for an eternity in hell? The answer is YES! God does care. He loves us more that a parent can possibly love their child. He weeps over the broken-hearted. He loves us with an everlasting love. God is Love. He didn’t find it too high a price to let His only Son become a man, live sinless among us, and then to be mocked, spit on, beaten beyond recognition and then hung on a cross with two thieves until He gave up His Spirit and died on that cross. Let me give you an idea of the sacrifice… Jesus was sinless and kept all of the law never breaking one command, not even the command against eating yeast, which in the Jewish community signifies sin. When Jesus was hung on the cross, He was asked once if He wanted some wine with myrrh mixed in… myrrh in wine acted as a painkiller and it was considered humane to give to a person condemned to the cross. Jesus did not take this wine, but as He hung on the cross, He said, “I thirst” to which He was given a sponge dipped in vinegar wine. This wine had yeast in it. Jesus not only had the sin of the world on the outside of His body, but He willingly took it in to His body becoming sin completely. He that knew no sin became sin for the saving of the whole world. You see God knew that man’s heart was sinful above all else. Yet, He loved us so much and He knew we could never bare the price that needed to be paid for our iniquity that He decided that He would pay the price for us. Thus, the Law of God is satisfied and the separation from God that existed before Christ was no longer there. But, that doesn’t truly give you the idea of how extreme Jesus’ sacrifice was. When He became sin… there was a moment when God the Father turned from His Son creating a separation between the two that grieved Jesus and broke His heart. God the Father could not bear to see Him that was sin. Jesus cried out “My God, My God why have you forsaken me?” it is the only time that Jesus didn’t refer to God as “Abba” or Daddy, but feeling the separation refers to Him as God. How He must have felt lonely, helpless, and fearful not being one with the Father for the first time in eternity. Yet He didn’t think it was too great a price to pay either… willingly giving Himself for us. Jesus had true faith, trusting in His Father, His God and our God to deliver Him from death. You see God is Love and loves more than we can comprehend. He is our Father and we are His children. First, God will never force us to love Him. We must love Him from our heart. Who would want forced love… in fact you couldn’t force someone to love you and consider it love. As a Father chastises his children when they are disobedient, God too will punish those He loves… this is to correct us when we get off course. Think about it like this… you tell your eight year old child not to play in the road… the child doesn’t see what the problem is… and you catch him playing in the street. What is your reaction? Some of us would yell at the child, some might spank the child, and still others would make the child come in the house and send him to his room or a combination of all three. Do you love your child any less… of course not… you are concerned with his safety and although the child doesn’t see the error of his ways you know the dangers that could hurt him if he disobeys. Sometimes the punishment hurts… but it produces the necessary effect. The child decides the punishment is too great to pay for some fun in the road. Pain produces positive results… this is nothing new, it is as old as mankind. No matter what our age… God sees us as little children who for the most part are helpless. Now I know that is going to grate on some people, especially people in positions of power, but it is true. Just look at the consequences of our behavior… let’s take STD’s for example. I know this may stretch your imagination but imagine if you can a world where one man marries one woman for life and neither party is unfaithful. Oh and by the way… sex outside of marriage doesn’t exist. So one man and one woman only have sex with each other… STD’s would not be able to exist. Ahhh… but that is not the case and STD’s run rampant around the world hopping from one bed to another infecting all its victims. Does God want this for His children…? NO! Nevertheless, this is a consequence of our actions. This is but one example… the world is replete with examples.
You might be asking yourself… OK…OK… I can see that God is correcting us for our misbehavior but what about all the evil in the world… like children being murdered? Certainly that is not a consequence of our misbehavior… Well… in fact it is. There are two important points to see here. First, the evil in the world came into the world through the sin of one man… Adam. The sin committed against the innocent child was the sin of the person committing the act, but that evil came into the world through Adam. Now the second point is this… because God will never force us to love Him, He allows evil to run through this world to give us a choice… to love and obey Him or to love and obey the lusts of the world, the flesh and the devil. To love and obey God in the midst of our trials and tribulations is the true mark of salvation.
Jesus was the friend of prostitutes, tax collectors, crippled, and the unwanted, unloved of society. The healthy don’t need a physician, He came for the sick, and the broken-hearted. He truly is Love. It is my prayer that you would ask God to reveal Himself to you… and that you would put your faith and trust in Him as you would a parachute if you were on a plane about to crash. God loves you so much… I know because He saved me… a poor wretch that certainly didn’t and doesn’t deserve His overwhelming grace and mercy. I love Him as a child looks up to and loves his father. He is my friend… and He has never failed me although I have failed Him many times. He knows your pain… and when you shed tears, He sheds tears over your hurt and pain… the same way it breaks a parent’s heart to see their child hurt. Well, enough of my droning for one day… good night.
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