That is the title of a great song. To answer the question that is being asked would take many words. It is safe to say that none of us are who we thought we would be when this time came. Some of us think that we know who we are, but do we really? Since you were in grammar school life’s experiences have made changes in you and in the person that you are right now. Some of those changes are good and some…not so much. What is my point? We are not genetically disposed to be this way or that other than being either a male or a female. Your genetics also control your eye and hair color and to some extent your personality and your skin color too.
But much of our everyday persona is learned behavior. We learn it from our parents and our friends and from everyone that we are exposed to in school. When we were in junior high school we would change our ideas almost daily just to be liked by those we aspired to be like.
So…who are you?
Each of us is the sum total of all our life experiences, good or bad. In many ways, it is hard to believe that we haven’t blown each other up long before now. We are still here, not because humanity is getting better, but because God is not finished with us yet. There are still some prophecies that need to be fulfilled including the state of Israel and its people recognizing their Messiah.
Cultures around the world are very different from each other because of their “life experiences” and most of our wars would never have happened if we were all more like Jesus. But we can’t be that good, at least not on our own. One day soon, we will see the Son of God. and the church will be taken up. When that happens, the whole world will know that the Bible was true. I pray that many more will seek Him out as their Savior before then.
In the Bible, we read that God commanded the sacrifice of animals and the shedding of their blood to atone for the people’s sins. This was at a time before Jesus came and paid for our sins collectively. Why did God ask for the sacrifices in the Old Testament? In many ways, it was to show the people that they couldn’t be good enough to be redeemed. At least on their own, they couldn’t.
In the book of Kings, God told Saul that He desired obedience more than a sacrifice. Why is obedience more important to God than sacrifice? Because He asks us to do something for Him and since He is God it is expected of His children to obey. If you are a Christian, you have been adopted into God’s family. He asked Jesus to take on the sins of the world and pay the penalty for those sins so we would not have to pay it. Since we are children of God, shouldn’t we obey Him in all things…every day?
The blessing that we have been given through Jesus is not something that we have earned, it is given to us through faith in Jesus’ sacrifice for us. We must believe in His sacrifice and in order to believe in it and place our faith in Him we were given the grace and the faith to believe. We didn’t conjure it up on our own, it was given to us through God’s mercy and His grace toward us because of Jesus.
God saw each of us down through time and He knew that we would need Jesus at a certain point in our lives. Then, He provided us with the faith to recognize that we were sinners in need of a Savior so we would seek Him out. I know that some people don’t like the idea that they didn’t have anything to do with their salvation other than to believe in Him and accept it but that is how God works. When you feel His touch in your life regardless of where you may be at the time, respond to Him and accept His gift of grace. The opportunity may not come again.
How much time do you have? How much time does our world have?
The only One who knows this answer is God. I have been on this Earth, in this body for 21, 900 days. That sounds like a lot of time but it’s not. Six decades is only enough time to live through marriage and raising a child and seeing them grow up and become adults and maybe even a grandparent. It is enough time to make it through high school, college, and a career and come to a point where you are considering retirement if that is an option.
Our days are numbered and God knows exactly how many days you and I have left. He has known this all along but we don’t need to know it. The time that we are living in is at the end of the age of grace. If you don’t know Jesus as your Savior, I suggest you begin seeking Him to be your Savior soon. The church will be taken away and when that happens it will be even more difficult and dangerous to become a Christian.
God’s Son has already paid the price for your salvation, all you have to do is seek Him out and claim it to become a Christian and an adopted heir of salvation.
Who has the most influence in your life? Is it your friend? Is it your parents? Is it your wife or your mother? For most of us, the answer is our wife or our mother, or both. We learn many things from our mothers while we are growing up. Whether we are home-schooled or not. We see how they handle situations. We hear their opinions and their advice, whether they intended for us to hear it or not. Some of us learn from our fathers and our grandfathers some important lessons. Sometimes they are good lessons and sometimes they are lessons that we would rather forget about, but they are learned nonetheless.
Occasionally, the lessons that we learn are from life itself. Schoolmates and friends teach us things. Some of which we shouldn’t have learned but in some ways, these “life lessons” help to make us who we become later in life. Then there are those lessons that we learn by trial and error. These lessons also teach us and make us into the people that we will ultimately become.
I’ve often wondered if God has a hand in all of these “teachable moments” and in the last decade I’ve come to realize that He does indeed have a hand in guiding us through them whether we know Him as our Savior…yet, or not. Especially when He has a plan and a purpose for your life that you may not know about yet. I mean, He does place kings and Presidents in their places because He is working through them to bring about His will for our planet and the people on it. So, why wouldn’t He have a hand in each of our lives even when we haven’t come to the place where He is our Savior and Lord?
Sometimes we go through some dark times in our life so He can show us the way out of the darkness. I went through a time of depression while I was a pastor of a small church. Brought on because I wasn’t sure that my message was making any difference. But God brought me through it and gave me a message to put out there so others could find it and hopefully find Him as well.
Jesus said, “Seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened, ask and it shall be given“. Don’t go through life without Him. When you feel that you need His help and you don’t know where to find Him, pray. Seeking Him through prayer will allow you to find Him and then ask Him for your salvation and your strength will be given to you as well. Will your life become easy and wonderful from that point on? No, because when you belong to Jesus, Satan will try to ruin your witness in front of your family and friends. So keep seeking Him every day and you can overcome those hard times that Satan is throwing your way.
Psalm 31: 14-16 says: “But, I trusted in the thee, O Lord, I said, Thou art my God. My times are in thy hand: deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me. Make thy face to shine upon thy servant; save me for thy mercies’ sake”.
Why should you trust in the Lord? Because being a truly changed Christian requires it. Trust is also another word for faith or “having faith in”. God is our Creator and our Redeemer and the faith that we should have in Him for our salvation is necessary for that salvation to be real. If it is not there, then your salvation may not be real either. Going a bit further, trusting in Him is the only way to know God and His Son as your Savior.
So, why do people in our world today seem to believe in things that have no eternal meaning? It seems that people will believe in many things today that have no basis in fact at all and cannot be proven scientifically but they will argue with you feverishly over their “beliefs” even when they cannot prove any of them. Jesus came to the Earth to bear the sins of the world and to pay the penalty for all of humanity. Whether you believe in Him or not or even if you have accepted Him as your Savior or rejected His offer, He still came and paid the price for your soul. That is how much God values your soul.
Even if only one other person accepts Jesus as their Savior, God knows who you are and He values you enough to pay your way into heaven by believing in Jesus for your salvation. When you feel broken and hurt and depressed, God is there waiting for you to turn to Him. He can heal your heart and the problems that are weighing on your life. He can give your life a meaning that it has never had before, regardless of your background or any of your sins in your life…He loves you!
