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Do you ever wonder how different things might be if we hadn't made a concerted effort over the past decades to rid ourselves of any sense of responsibility and accountability to the God of the Universe who made us to glorify and enjoy Him forever? When we tell people there is no God, then naturally, they do what is right in their own eyes. 'What's right' is going to differ from person to person, and what 'right' does anyone have to tell anyone else that anything is wrong? or that anything is right? Maybe kidnapping children is their thing. Maybe killing a classroom of kids is their thing. What does it matter? Who's to say it is wrong to do it?
We can hardly turn to society to be our standard. We saw what happened with the goodness of society in the Soviet Union under Stalin, in Germany under Hitler, etc.. Society cannot be counted on to do the right thing. And besides, what IS the right thing??
How did we get to the point that we cringe at a TV commercial which shows a homeless, abused dog, but go through our day with little or no thought of the million unborn babies murdered in this country each year.
We want to think that we are moral, but outside God, there is no morality. He is the standard. He has given it to us to obey - for our own GOOD, so that we can love Him and enjoy life and prosper and be happy and help our neighbor. It is all good. But when we turn away from Him to the dark side, there is no longer any standard. When we get rid of God and make up our own rules, then the guy who held that little boy hostage in the bunker has every bit as much right as anyone else does to do what he wants.
We all know, whether or not we'll admit it, that things in our society are dreadfully wrong. We know there must be something better.
Ephesians 2:1-10
"It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live.
You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat.
It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.
Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus.
Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing." - The Message
"To the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen."
Jesus: the only One who gives us hope and a future.
