MANKIND'S HOPE |
| When people I meet begin to share with me their relationship with God, it is often clear that they are not confident where they will spend eternity. Perhaps that is why some people get angry or resentful if a pastor preaches about the reality of hell. They are afraid that they might spend eternity there. This is not God's plan for His kids. He does not want them to be afraid of Him as if He is looking for any opportunity to send them into a lost eternity. That would make Him sound like human parents planning to have a baby so they can leave it at the city dump. Ridiculous! As our Father, He longs to have fellowship with all of His children. It was not God who shoved His children away. It was His children who decided that they wanted to go out on their own, do their own thing as they ignored their heavenly Father's will in their lives. If we just stop to think about the consequences of this kind of relationship, we begin to understand that if the King of the Universe allowed His kids to ignore His will in their lives, there could never be a heaven. Consider what this world is like where the majority of people follow their own religious views while ignoring God's word for their lives. We are swamped with wars, crime, cruelty, robberies, rape, home invasions, and the like. Many families never learn the meaning of true love so they end in divorces. Our old natures are vicious without our Father's control through His Spirit, checking all our evil thoughts that want to direct our actions. Even Isaiah, the great prophet of God, recognized how far short he and his fellow Israelites were when it comes to living up. He cried out: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The Lord of hosts.” (Isaiah 6:5b) It is a terrifying thing for any sinner to stand in the presence of the Holy One. The good news is that God had a cure for Isaiah so he could become a servant of the most high. We read: Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth with it, and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; Your iniquity is taken away, And your sin purged.” Here is the beginning of wisdom. Isaiah understood that he was not accepted by God because of his goodness, even though Isaiah was a righteous man in many ways. He could stand in the presence of the Holy One only because the Lord sent a seraphim to take away his iniquity and purge his sin. Ultimately, there was only one real solution for God's rebellious kids. He would send His Word to take on flesh. This word would live a perfect, pure life without sin so he was pleasing to God. When it was time, he would offer himself as the perfect sacrifice to pay the full price for the sins of the whole world. (This was necessary because the wages of sin is death.) Once Jesus paid this horrible price, he rose from the dead to demonstrate His power over sin and death from that time forward. Now, all that is necessary for any human being is to humbly repent of one's sin, claim Jesus as his or her only hope for salvation. Then, God covers that repentant person with the perfection of Jesus, and He sends His Holy Spirit into that person's life to give that person a new nature (regeneration) that is horrified over the sins that show up daily. He brings these sins to God, claiming the cleansing that Jesus promised. He also asks for the Holy Spirit to give him daily victory over sin so he can live for the glory of God. Prayer: Father God, I come to you through Jesus, your son, and I ask you for forgiveness of all my sin. Fill me with your Spirit, Lord. I offer you my heart, mind, soul and strength asking you to use me for your glory as a servant fully compliant with your will. Amen. |
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