I Corinthians 1:18-19 (Message Bible)
The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way to salvation, it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out . It written, "I'll turn conventional wisdom on its head, I'll expose so called experts as crackpots."
With all our technology....
With all our collective intellectual prowess for solving problems.....
With all the universities and colleges and institutions for research and development.....
We still don't get it.....
The sum of all of man's problems that we encounter daily is rooted in one simple word.......sin.
A base nature that has gone bad.....
A nature that is self serving and self seeking....
It may be manifested in various ways and in varying degrees, but sin is the reason for this season.
It isn't a word that people really like to talk about. Why? Because eventually it will turn into a religious debate for or against God. Some will argue that sin is a creation of mankind to give answers to the wrong that plague society. They will argue that if we can just be educated in what is proper (notice I didn't say what was right...they tend to steer clear of absolutes), then the individual can live a productive society. Well, I don't know if you've noticed or not, but our productive society is going down the toilet at this very moment.
Seems as though everyone has gotten so weary of the argument and the battle over drugs that they are now turning the tide in favor of legalizing some of them. Oh, that's going to solve a lot of problems, isn't it? Kind of like the argument for voting our county wet so alcohol could be sold here. The voice rang loud and long...."With all the income we'll receive our schools will be the best in the nation...we will be able to afford all the latest technology and give our children an education they deserve." Really? Have you looked around at the crime that came in with the right to get wasted?
People keep battling the wrong thing in this so called war on drugs...
The war isn't with the drugs or alcohol....
The war is with the human heart.
It isn't about the use of drugs...
It is about why do I have to use....
Why is it I have surrendered myself over to something that is destroying my very life, and yet I am powerless to quit. In fact, I keep going back for more, even when I don't want to.
I like the way the Message Bible explains our dilemma, in a passage from Romans 7.
But I need something more! For if I know the law but can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it. I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.
Why is it we can't acknowledge the simple fact that we have a broken place inside of us that can only be fixed by Jesus? Paul goes on to give us the solution to this universal problem.
O Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God---through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Is that insane or what?
The answer to our life and the problems we have created has been there right in front of us all along, and we refuse to acknowledge it.
You can rail and scream that you don't believe it...you don't believe anything that I've written....but that doesn't make it any less true...it just makes you more and more blind to the truth.
When Bill Wilson, one of the co-founders of A.A., was at the darkest time of his struggle with alcoholism, the doctor he was seeing said that there was no hope for Bill. The only thing that would save him would be, as the doctor phrased it, "A VITAL SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE." That's a nice way of saying that Bill needed an encounter with Jesus.
Step #2 says that "we come to believe in a Power greater than ourselves who can restore us to sanity." This idea of "coming to believe" is not a mental nod to a religious idea. It isn't a mental exercise that is born out of hopelessness. Coming to believe in someone can only be birthed through having an encounter with that Power.
I can talk about electricity all day long. It value and the benefits that come from having it. But until I am shocked by electricity, then ever thing I say is conjecture. Once I have been shocked, I actually move from believing to a place of knowing. I do believe it is the same with Jesus....His desire is to come and save us from our own sin/destruction, by filling us with His Holy Spirit. Our lives will become one of daily knowing the power and presence of Jesus.
Sounds like a winner-winner-chicken-dinner kind of deal to me.
How about you?
God on you...
mb
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