There's a nagging sense that this life isn't all that it could be. It's a feeling that there's something more, that despite everything we've done and everything we've obtained, something somewhere is still missing. Maybe it's around the next corner or could be found in the next thing, relationship or experience...
Somewhere deep down in the heart of every person who hasn't yet found the answer and the truly satisfying, permanent resolution, there's a hole. There's still something missing and despite everything we've tried to fill it with, something's still not right. Like an itch begging to be scratched it motivates a reaction, but what reaction will satisfy - what resolution? What is it?
The volume of that sense varies from person to person and for some it ebbs and flows as life goes on. For some it's quiet, like a continual, still small voice and for others it may rise to a level that brings them to crisis or just to do things that they wouldn't otherwise do. But it's there, driving us to something...
Now, for a moment, let's take a step back and look at another problem.
No matter who we are, if we're honest, there are things in our past that we regret if even only secretly. They might be things that we refuse to admit or allow ourselves to think about, but we know they're there just the same. It's baggage that we've accumulated over the miles we've traveled in life and some of it's shameful and some of it brings guilt - and again, even if only secretly, we know it's there.
There are two things that everyone faces whether they admit it or not - something's missing... and there's some nasty baggage we wish we didn't have if we haven't already found the real answer to them both. The answer's found in that nagging sense. That sense is something that we were created with and that will continue until the day we pass from this life, but there is a cure and it's one that brings resolution and satisfaction regardless of anything that you may have done. The cure is to answer it. To answer it and to continue to answer it honestly, brings satisfaction and resolution to both of those nagging things that everyone faces. What is "it"?... It's God calling.
In our spiritual DNA, our Father God programmed a message to each of us when He created us. It's a message calling us to Himself - not so He can condemn us, we already own condemnation - but to set us free from condemnation, guilt and shame and to finally satisfy that void in us that only relationship with Him can fill. You can try anything, do anything, seek satisfaction in anything else - but nothing, nothing's going to do for you what only He can do. He created us for Himself, so that call to relationship with Him continues. Answering it is the only way to resolve those two things that face each of us, because that's the way He predestined it to be - but it opens the door to so much satisfaction!
God's calling out to mankind to draw man to Himself isn't a call to condemnation - we've already brought that on ourselves and have owned it. It's not a call to guilt and shame as some in opposition might suggest in their ignorance of the truth. It's a definite and divine calling out from God to draw mankind back to Himself and to the freedom from them both. It's a call to new, clean innocence and an exceedingly abundant life of wonder and grace while there's still time to take advantage of the freedom that Christ purchased for us. It's an opportunity to make the choice to accept the key to a divinely planned life that begins when we're willing to surrender the guilt and shame that we've already brought upon ourselves and accept the life that He intended for us from the beginning. And the end of this life isn't the end of His plan, ...it's only the beginning for those willing to accept His terms.
A little bit of history...
From the beginning and right away in the Garden of Eden, mankind fell into a lesson that was necessary for him to learn about himself before he could appreciate his own weakness - his desperate need for humility, his dependence on the God who created him and about God Himself. Man was quickly marked by his own failed choice to sin before the sovereign and completely Holy God who detests even the faintest hint of sin. Thinking about this, it occurred to me a long time ago that the very same choice had once existed in the heavens before the foundation of the earth...
Well before the creation of man, there was a group of angels who were confronted with a similar choice - and they failed in a similarly devastating way - they rebelled against God and His establishments. They were consequently cast out and marked with an inescapable sentence - destined for separation from God and to the horrors of hell. Sounds familiar doesn't it? If we were paying attention, we've been given an example and a warning.
Jude 1:6 (NLT) "And I remind you of the angels who did not stay within the limits of authority God gave them but left the place where they belonged. God has kept them securely chained in prisons of darkness, waiting for the great day of judgment."
2 Peter 2:4 (NLT) "For God did not spare even the angels who sinned. He threw them into hell, in gloomy pits of darkness, where they are being held until the day of judgment."
Before time began, when God considered inventing a new creature, it might make perfect sense even to us, understanding what had already occurred with the angels, for God to make clear to that new creature his limitations and complete dependence on the sovereign God to whom he would forever belong. It might seem sensible even to us that it would be necessary for that new creature to understand his own weakness, his fallibility and his powerful creator God's unchanging repulsion toward the stench of sin. It would probably make sense even to us, that it would be necessary for that creature to understand that his obedience and respect for God and for what God established was not an option in order for him to escape the same sentence given to the failed angels before him... and we are that creature.
According to scripture, in this life we've been made a little lower than the angels... and if the angels didn't escape God's justice, why would we ever think that we could?
Hebrews 2:6-7 (NLT)
6 "For in one place the Scriptures say, “What are mere mortals that you should think about them, or a son of man that you should care for him? 7 Yet for a little while you made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor."
It might NOT make sense to some unforgiving creatures for an all-knowing and loving God to make a way out for those fallible creatures that He was about to create, but being so immeasurably wiser and merciful than we are, He did. That way out would one day be laid out in a new contract - it would be a covenant that would offer an opportunity for man to start over clean and free of his past failures while seeking the path of compliance and relationship with the unchangeable establishments of the sovereign God and with God Himself. It would be a covenant of hope and forgiveness offered when there was no other way out. But even as the Lord prepared to establish that new covenant and make mercy possible, there were some who were incapable of understanding the Lord's wisdom and challenged Him ignorantly... not unlike today.
John 2:18-22 (NLT)
18 "But the Jewish leaders demanded, “What are you doing? If God gave you authority to do this, show us a miraculous sign to prove it.” 19 “All right,” Jesus replied. “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 “What!” they exclaimed. “It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple, and you can rebuild it in three days?” 21 But when Jesus said “this temple,” he meant his own body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered he had said this, and they believed both the Scriptures and what Jesus had said."
But Jesus Christ, the Son of God and our hero, did raise it up. On the third day He did what no one else could do - the humanly impossible and raised from the dead. But of course those who've followed Him studying diligently, know that He accomplished so much more than raising Himself from death over the course of those three days. Not least among those things that He accomplished was the fulfillment of establishing that new covenant between Holy God and the far lesser creatures (mankind) that He'd created. So it now exists as an opportunity of grace and one provided at a heavy and tremendous cost to the Lord Himself. It was a cost that He was willing to bear because He loves us so much and it was all planned from before the beginning of time with the greatest of righteous intention and loving hope. It was a selfless sacrifice to provide love, freedom and hope that's offered now to all who are willing to accept it from their loving Creator in the hope that they would choose to love Him and respond to Him in return.
Ephesians 3:8-9 (NLT) (The Apostle Paul speaking)
8 "Though I am the least deserving of all God’s people, he graciously gave me the privilege of telling the Gentiles about the endless treasures available to them in Christ. 9 I was chosen to explain to everyone this mysterious plan that God, the Creator of all things, had kept secret from the beginning."
Jesus, The Christ, The Messiah, sent by Father God at exactly the right time paid the price to be allowed to offer mercy to any among mankind willing to acknowledge their failings against Father God's holy standards, accepting Christ's sacrifice in their place and willing to repent. So now, we imperfect creatures, perfectly created for the purposes of God, have the opportunity to be redeemed and reconciled to the God that created us. Peace and reconciliation between the omnipotent, holy and all righteous Creator and the lovingly created suddenly and miraculously became possible through Christ Jesus and is available to us all.
Galatians 1:4 (NLT) "Jesus gave his life for our sins, just as God our Father planned, in order to rescue us from this evil world in which we live."
But our God, being the ultimate gentleman doesn't force anyone, He offers us the freedom of a choice. We can accept Jesus Christ as our savior, accepting His suffering in our place, while repenting of our failures and submitting ourselves to His transforming work in us, ... or choose to pay the price ourselves along with those fallen angels before us.
You may have heard it before, you may have even began to answer it once and then drifted away. It may sound to you like a well worn and often heard call. But Father God is patient, like the compassionate and hopeful lover that He is - not willing that any should perish. Being also holy and righteous in His judgments, knowing the set number of our days beforehand, when our time to choose will run out, He continues to call out intently and with great hope to any who will listen...
2 Peter 3:9-10 (NLT)
9 "The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent. 10 But the day of the Lord will come as unexpectedly as a thief. Then the heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the very elements themselves will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything on it will be found to deserve judgment."
After the angels, we were created as we are so that we would recognize and appreciate our place before Him and also come to know the beauty and merciful person that He is with true gratitude in our hearts for all that He offers us through the simple, but powerful grace of a choice. The word love has come to mean different things to different people depending on their perception and understanding, but the holy love of God supersedes anything man can know without knowing Him and isn't a word, but a living expression of who He is.
The call to true freedom and satisfaction is still sounding while time is passing for each of us. None of us knows the status of our own hourglass or when the last grains of sand will fall - ending the opportunity we've been offered. And the potential tragedy extends further through the fact that every grain that falls is a moment in which we might have known Him better and walked with Him - relishing every step we took in this life in companionship and relationship with our Creator God.
1 Corinthians 2:7-9 (NLT)
7 "No, the wisdom we speak of is the mystery of God—his plan that was previously hidden, even though he made it for our ultimate glory before the world began. 8 But the rulers of this world have not understood it; if they had, they would not have crucified our glorious Lord. 9 That is what the Scriptures mean when they say, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared
for those who love him.""
Freedom is calling... answer it!
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