Pest Control

In the midst of what might appear to be a darkening spiritual horizon and one that seems to be giving a host of possible reasons for concern, I would stand to reassure you that hope remains unshakable because like our God, His truth remains unchanged.

It's true that as we watch the constant and unrelenting daily stream of current news stories from around the world, we might be tempted to let our peace be adversely affected. There's a steady drum beat of aggression, oppression, repression, viciousness, perversion, deception, lust, lawlessness and murder ... and around the world it's increasingly targeting Christ's followers. It's a steady invitation - an attempt to appeal to our sense of indignation, alarm and fear ... and a designed potential distraction from the truth.

We live in a day of widespread, graphic and almost instantaneous media coverage. Many of the stories we see and hear in the news today have the potential to breed what I like to think of as spiritual parasites that will persistently gnaw away at our hope and our faith if we let them. Their gnawing work can provide opportunities for fear, despair and hopelessness to gain a foothold. It can be easy for the world of men to distract us from what's eternally true if we lose our focus and concentration ... and it's not a coincidence. It's just the same old worn out use of emotional provocation that satan's been using for centuries in an effort to win a war that he's already lost in miserable fashion. Apparently he hasn't gotten the memo ... maybe he killed the messenger. Oh wait, he did and that's how he lost the battle for you and me ...

Regardless of what happens in the world of men, our eternal God has not abdicated the throne, nor will He ever. He remains unmovable and unchangeable and so does His long held plan. He is the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent power that reigns over all that exists ... and that includes satan (By the way, I did NOT forget to capitalize in case you were wondering). What we're seeing around us in part, are the effects of an attempted insurrection that began long before us and it's influence on the free will of men. As the influence once again rises, more and more the moral compass of our world seems to be pointing to a steaming stink pile of immorality and murder rather than the life giving and spiritually prospering laws of our Creator God - laws given lovingly as a positive benefit to mankind. But this is in the perishing physical world of men ... and it's not unexpected. In fact, in the plan of our God it proves to be a spiritual threshing floor to separate the wheat from the chaff ...

In the beginning of man's time on the earth, our forerunners, and not without satan's influence, exercised their God given free will in a way that brought sin into the world. Ever since then it has pervaded generation after generation to a point that the Apostle Paul made the familiar and truthful observation in Romans 3:23 that "All have sinned; all fall short of God's glorious standard. (NLT)" Indeed, cast against the pure and perfect high standards of our God, none of us measures up. Then further in Romans 6:23 Paul points out sin's earned reward: "For the wages of sin is death ... (NLT)". Examining biblical history reveals to us that early in the beginning, mankind separated himself from Holy God by introducing the infectious cancer of sin and that he has struggled ever since to try to close the gap with less than successful results ...

But then from the eternal spiritual realm came our hero! Jesus, God's own son born of His Spirit, who brought both the message and the execution of our redemption to make it possible for all men to be reunited with our Father God. We, being doomed to death for even the slightest error of sin against God's Holy standard, found our own sentence fulfilled by Heaven's own divine Prince as he offered His own life in our place. Only one sacrifice could be made that could pay the price for all men - only a holy lamb, unblemished without spot or sin, one coming from our God's own throne who willingly offered Himself to suffer in our place. Even then satan leveraged his parasitic influence against sinful minds and unwittingly helped to fulfill Christ's selfless mission. Then as was prophesied before hand, and in order to validate our redemption, Christ Jesus was raised victorious from the dead on the third day.

Indeed Jesus did come, knowingly and willingly to suffer both brutally and shamefully at the hands of the very ones He came to save. Because of His sacrifice and our acceptance of it, we are now no longer slaves of cancerous sin, nor subject to it's demanded payment and we have the opportunity of joy in close fellowship with our Father God. We as the redeemed were created eternal spirits in God's own image and are now on our path to eternal fellowship with Him in a far better place than this. So whatever spiritual parasites satan  may try to use against us, he cannot win. Because death to us is dead and whatever may rear it's head in this place - whatever may threaten, whatever may happen and whatever may be said of us - our glorious future destiny is unchanged - because Jesus lives! This ... is the eternal truth.