Please feel free to pour yourself a cup of your favorite joe and join me for some thoughts which I hope will get you thinking about your faith and this world in which we live. Speaking of this world in which we live, we must never lose sight of what the Bible has to say about this world. For starters, the Apostle John in his gospel tells us that "God loved the world in such a way that He gave his one and only Son . . ." (John 3:16). The word "world" here refers to the world of people - the image-bearers whom God himself created among whom everyone of us is numbered. Now when we are born into this world, we are born in a state of rebellion. That's right. We are born rebels. We don't want to go God's way, but rather we are determined to go OUR way (Isaiah 53:6). As a result, children need to be taught to do the right thing, yes? If you have any doubts, you have never been a parent or worked in childcare! One of the roles of parents is to teach their children to do the right thing!
God the Father, knowing our desperate condition, sent his son to be born as one of us and to eventually die for us. In Jesus Christ (his death, burial and resurrection), God provides for us the path (the only path) back to him (John 14:6).
In addition to this use of the word "world", John uses the word in another way in his first letter. In 1 John 5:19 he writes, "the whole world is under the sway of the evil one." Here John is using the word to refer to the evil world system which is controlled by our arch enemy, Satan. One quick look around at what is happening in our world today most certainly confirms that the evil one is at work all across the globe!
This brings me to what is so heavy on my heart as I write these words. Early this past Sunday afternoon, I received the first news of the church shooting in Texas. Over two dozen people, many of them children gunned down in cold blood. Eight members of one extended family! I was stunned! My heart was broken. As my mind began to clear, I found myself shaking my head. Yet another mass shooting. Las Vegas and now this (and this shooting on the heels of the recent truck killing of people on a Manhattan bike path)! The evil one is indeed at work - and by the way, Jesus himself refers to the evil one as a "murderer from the beginning" (John 8:44). Since Satan controls this world system, murders are all too common.
So what is the answer? Tighter gun control? More emphasis on the treatment of mental illness? More security measures?
Bottom line, the issue is a heart issue. Evil hearts are behind these killings (take a look at the anatomy of the first murder in human history as recorded in Genesis 4:1-15). Jeremiah the prophet writes that the human heart is "more deceitful than anything else and incurable - who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 9:17). Of course, the answer to his question is that God can. God knows all. That means he knows anything and everything there is to know about our hearts (Hebrews 4:13).
But all is not doom and gloom. Into the shroud of evil's darkness shines the light of the gospel (good news) of Jesus Christ. When Jeremiah tells us that our hearts our incurable, he is right on! So our only hope is for a new heart. And only God can give us one (Ezekiel 36:26). How about YOU? Have you undergone this divine heart transplant? If you haven't, I encourage you to take a moment and check out Two Ways to Live: The Choice We All Face. When you make the right choice to embrace Jesus Christ as the ONLY answer to your desperate need for a new heart ... he will give you a new heart, a new life, a new destiny!
Thanks for stopping by . . .
pj
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