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

How Long Will You Wait?

The problem we face as Christians who sincerely want to see our neighbors and friends come to Christ is the misconception we have about what this means for them to make such a dramatic left turn.  The vast majority of people we contact daily who are not born from above are completely content as they are.  They don't want our assertions or our "great opportunity".  It is absurd to them that they should change their lives so dramatically as we insist and their conscience is not the least bit troubled by what they do.    Divorce is reasonable if they are no longer in love, pornography is enjoyable and maybe even helpful, what we call sexual immorality is moral to them and greed honored.  The itch is meant to be scratched every time it surfaces and the audacity of demanding something approaching limits to freedom is irrational to them.  We are not, and never have been offering something so enticing it cannot be rejected.  Jesus did not say He came to bring peace but a sword.  Most people do not see Christianity as a better life; a less tolerable one perhaps, a constricted one probably.  Even many Christians are a tad bitter about what they find Christianity to be.   The deceit of Satan is thorough and penetrating.  The lie that being in Christ is a meager and impoverished existence is believed almost universally, even many times within the church.  Why would those infatuated with death want to cross over to life?  The Gospel is not seen as good news but a bitter pill to swallow.  What can we do about this?  The Lord has given us two directives.  Pray for the hearts of our family, friends and neighbors and say the Gospel clearly.  Rather than being confounded by a  wasteland of wrecked souls, grab the hope Jesus Himself had when He happily proclaimed His mission...The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.  (John 10:10 NIV)  Not everyone will realize their lives are bankrupt without Jesus but some will.  Not everyone will want to hear what you have to say but some will.    We must not be dismayed by the prevailing blindness.  The Lord is present shedding light in the darkness so not every soul is trapped in the shadows.   The Gospel is even now unlocking rusted padlocks binding hearts and you have that same key in your hand.  Don't worry yourself with strategies for trying to convince people to come to Christ.  Let the Holy Spirit do that work.  Give  the Gospel  away though as if it were the  hope of all mankind; don’t hold back when your time has come to be the great angel of grace, God's personal messenger.  Someone is waiting for you.  God has prepared the way!

Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God."   Luke 9:60 NIV