A new year has started. It began with bangs and clangs and even fireworks. A lot of those bangs were gunshots and I really, really wish that people who do that would stop. Stop right now! Those bullets end up somewhere, even when they are shot into the air. I’m sure that those who shoot their guns don’t mean harm but harm is what they can do. It’s a thoughtless action and that is something that is becoming more common as every day passes.
We do things without thinking. We buy without thinking. We speak without thinking. What are we not thinking about? Consequences. Everything we think, do or say has consequences.
It’s like we have decided that, both as a people and as individuals, we no longer care about who might be hurt by what we do. As long as we get what we want, do what we want and/or say what we want to say, who cares for anyone else? The most important person in the universe, the one we love more than any other, has been served and everyone else, essentially, can eat dirt.
This isn’t how we were made. We were made to love one another. We are all brothers and sisters, created by the same loving God. He wants for us all to be together, but after we sinned, we stopped loving one another as we should. Instead, everyone else is our enemy. Someone to one up, to beat out, or to show up in some way or another.
I know that I have felt that way over the years. It’s shown up in many ways and places. It may be a niggling thought or it may be something I obsess about. If I feel I need to “beat someone” to get something, I can work really hard to do it. The work I have done in this fashion is much more than I have ever devoted to God’s kingdom.
What does that say about me?
Well, I guess it shows that I am the same as everyone else. I’m a sinner. The difference may be that I am a sinner who has been redeemed by the Living God.
When I allow my behavior to go off the rails, I hear from God in short order. Sometimes, I obey immediately and repent and change my ways, apologizing to anyone I have hurt. Most times, I put blinders on and stick my fingers in my ears, saying “Na, na, na” trying to block out God’s reproving and loving voice.
During those times, I continue on my way, doing what I want without regard to others, let alone God. My efforts don’t end well. I may accomplish what I set out to do but it is like ashes in my mouth. It is not only unsatisfying but makes me feel as if somehow, somewhere, I didn’t do, say or think enough about how to get whatever it was done. If I had, it would have made me feel great, wonderful like I had won the best prize in the world.
Sometimes, these efforts have come at great cost. It could be emotional or physical. It is always at a spiritual cost. During these times of my open rebellion, I lose my connection to God. If I pray without repenting, he doesn’t respond. I can’t be sure he is even listening but if he is, he is waiting to hear me say I’m truly sorry and ask for his help in changing my ways. And then, for me to actually work at changing my ways.
This always happens at some point and God is always good and just to listen and forgive, to reprove and to set me back on my path walking with him again. More humble and, at the same time, more committed to him.
That is the difference between a person who has been saved by grace through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and those people who are not saved. The saved have a venue to God and those who are not, do not. The unsaved can, if they look to Jesus and ask for his forgiveness, repent of their sins and acknowledge that he is God in flesh who lived a perfect and sinless life, died for them and then who rose from the dead to save them and provide them with eternal life. Along with that, they must truly repent of all of their sins and ask for his help in leaving their sinful ways behind.
I wish I could say that, at some point, we are without sin. Actually, that will happen one day but not during a day of our regular lives. It will be when Christ returns for his followers. He will return to place judgement on the earth and to all those who have ever dwelled on it.
The Bible says that the heavens will be shaken and that those who did not accept him will look to the skies, see him returning and will mourn that they did not see him as Messiah before that day. You see, once that happens, your eternity has been sealed. It takes faith to be redeemed. You must meet and accept God by faith before that great and terrible day.
Those of us who have accepted the gift of pardon will be transformed. We will be remade to be like Jesus, without sin and with a body that will last for eternity. We will live with God forever and ever.
Those who did not accept him will also have a place in eternity. It will be a torturous and horrible place with more awful things than we can image.
The way to avoid it is to look to Jesus. Accept him and learn to live a different way. While it will not change the outcome of the world, it could make a positive impact on those we live with and who are influenced by our thoughts, words and deeds. At the very least, it will certainly change you. It will help you see that you are not the most important person in the universe.
That person is Jesus. The humble servant who came to die for us and to show us how to live. That same person who will return and show us that he is the conquering King who will rule in justice and goodness forever and ever.
2 Timothy 3:1-5
But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God – having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.