The Great Moment

The Great Moment of our "turn around" is never at the spot when everything changes but at the point at which we decide for God.  When a paralytic was carried to the home where Jesus was teaching, the turn around was not when the man arrived.  It wasn't when Jesus bent over the cripple and told him to walk.  It wasn't even those rapid fire nanoseconds when healing flashed through the paralytic's legs.  The turn around was when it was decided to go to the Lord for help.  Repentance is a turn around.  The cry to God for help is a turn around.  The lostness that is discovered in the heart is a turn around.  As we come to grips with the  realization that every hope we have must end with God and if the truth be known, starts with Him, we meet the turn around at our doorstep.  Faith is the turn around; it is the spot at which we go outside ourselves and the miserly universe and seek the treasure trove of God's grace.  This world is never enough and will never provide us with enough.  We are always left with an empty pang in our stomach when all we do is rely upon this world for what we long to have.  It is more than metaphoric that the prodigal realized where he should have lived all along when his stomach growled uncontrollably.  We seek the Father not to get something in the end but because He is the beginning and the end.  All joy and peace and love and contentment are found ultimately in Him and although we may mistake some carnal longing for its heavenly desire, even in our most lustful cravings, we have in them the opportunity to fill our stomach with the bread Jesus offered the crowd on the hillside.   His broken body and poured out blood come to us at the moment of our hunger pangs and if we are wise, we will feast on them.  Given the voracity of our appetite, the only way we can ever be filled is by turning to Christ and letting Him fully satisfy us.    When you decide to go after the Savior, He saves you beyond the saving  you sought.

Why are you downcast, O my soul?  Why so disturbed within me?  Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. Psalm 42:5-6a NIV

Love vs. the Machine

When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. John 19:30 NIV

 

 

Now there is something which the other Gospels make clear.  He bellowed, shouted, just before He let death take Him and it is not something to miss.  He hollered while hanging on the cross, “It is finished!”  Why would He yell that?  Why would He want to make sure everyone witnessing His death heard that?  Why did Jesus leave that as His last statement before giving up His Spirit?  Consider carefully what Jesus made clear was His reason in life, His purpose.  “The Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.” (Luke 19: 10 NIV)  Jesus came to seek out and save those lost in their sin, those alienated from God and hopeless.  He came in other words to rescue people.  In 1Peter 2:21-25a is the delineation of what this meant.  …Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps. "He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth." When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were like sheep going astray… (NIV)

What was finished when Jesus died?  He sought you out.  He found you and all your sin.  He then bore them on the cross and when He died, your sins died with Him.  He suffered the insults of people.  He was beaten by people.  He was nailed to a cross by people.  Then He let people mock Him until He died.  He looked at people and not one time did He call any of them a machine. Not one time did He turn from them like you would turn from a machine.  He looked at you.  He loved you.  He bore your sins and let them die in His body.  When all your rebellion against Him came into His body, when all the shabby ways you have treated people came into His body, when every cruel and selfish and indecent act of yours came into His body, He made it clear you were not a machine only to be used; He gave you His love.  He held onto your eternal life because you are not a machine…He did not let it go when the horror of death came upon Him.  You He loves because you are a person.  Not a person who has done great things.  Not a person who has accomplished great tasks.  Not a  person who has made Him better.  You are a person and that is reason enough for Jesus to bear your sins and love you.

How can you respond to that?  What can you do after that?  We are told to follow in His steps.  Never look at someone again and see a machine...a clump of corpuscles and nerve cords you might use and disregard like a tool in the shed  See a person you love.  Today, see a person before you and love.  See your crazy neighbor and love.  See your father and love.  See your mother and love.  See your boss and love.  See your husband or wife and love.  See your brother and love.  See your sister and love.  See the bitter, angry, frustrated, sarcastic, disturbed, self-serving, gossipy, traitorous, untrustworthy, conceited, negative, immoral, unbelieving, ungrateful person across from you and love.  We love…because He first loved us!