A Costly Fall!

I posted the following back on February 1, 2006. It was relevant then ... it is relevant now. So I post it again for any who happen by!

A visitor to a British museum recently tripped over his own shoe lace. In doing so, he stumbled down a flight of stairs and fell into a display of century old Chinese vases.The vases shattered into a “million pieces.” The vases from the Qing Dynasty were worth a small fortune – although the museum is not saying how much the vases are actually worth. Ouch!You talk about a costly fall! And by the way, Museum officials said they will do their best to put the vases back together. I hope they succeed.

This unnamed man, whose fall resulted in such destruction, reminds me of another man’s fall. Unlike the unnamed man in the museum, this man has a name we know: Adam. And also unlike the destroyer of the vases, Adam’s fall was no accident. His fall was intentional. We read about his fall in Genesis 3. There in the midst of the paradise of Eden, Adam and his wife Eve, chose to rebel against the God who made them. They looked around and thought that they could do a better job of running the world on their own vs. running it under God’s authority and with His help (see Isaiah 53:6). So they chose to say “NO!” to God and “YES!” to themselves. What was the result of that fateful choice? Well it is far worse than a few shattered vases. Out of Adam’s and Eve’s “fall” come death, destruction, and misery. The world we now live in is a broken world – or as I like to say, “A world that is temporarily out of order.” No matter how hard we try to put this world “back together” we will fail. Only God can do that. He began to do so 2000 years ago when He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die in payment for our sin of rebellion against Him. As the Apostle John reminds us, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16). Turning to Jesus Christ is the first step toward finding the healing we all need as broken people living in a broken world. If you have not turned to Jesus yet, send me an email (jsmith@gracewv.org) and we can “talk.” If you have, take a moment and thank God for doing for you what you in NO WAY could have ever done for your self!

Thanks for stopping by . . .

pj