Life is full of troubles and pain and sometimes…joy! It is also filled with disappointment and other problems that we can’t fix…but God is always near us. Many times we look around and see so much pain and problems and we feel that God doesn’t care and He isn’t in our lives. If you have never given your heart to Him, He still cares about you. He loves you more than you could imagine because He sent Jesus to pay the price for your soul and for all of the sins in your life and mine. Yes, God cares for us even when we feel alone and abandoned by everyone else He is still there.
Where are you in your relationship with God? If you have only attended church occasionally or on holidays then you have heard about Him and you’ve heard about Jesus but that isn’t enough. Your eternity is still in the balance. If you don’t believe in Jesus for your salvation and choose to turn away from your old life and follow Him then your eternity is going to be with the fallen angels and Satan.
If you feel His touch in your heart and you choose to follow Him as your Savior then your eternity will be with Him. Just as the thief on the cross believed in Him and he was with Jesus in Paradise that day! We can’t do anything to determine our eternal home except to believe in Jesus for our salvation because He is the only way to Heaven! There are other religions that claim to have an eternity in store for them but only Jesus paid for your salvation and He is coming back one day to rule the Earth for one thousand years!
Make sure of your eternity while you still can because only in this life can you choose. Once you have died, the choice has been made and your destination is set. Make sure it is an eternity with Jesus.
As the hart panteth after the water brooks, So panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my meat day and night, While they continually say unto me, Where is thy God? When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: For I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, With the voice of joy and praise, With a multitude that kept holyday. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in God: For I shall yet praise him For the help of his countenance. O my God, my soul is cast down within me: Therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar. Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. Yet the LORD will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, And in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life. I will say unto God my rock, why hast thou forgotten me? Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As with a sword in my bones, Mine enemies reproach me; While they say daily unto me, Where is thy God? Psalm 42:1-10 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/psa.42.1-10.KJV
God sent His Son to be the Lamb that takes the sins of the world on Himself. He did die on the cross but He rose from the dead three days later conquering death and the grave. Jesus is the embodiment of God’s love for humanity because He showed the effect of God’s love on everyone He ministered to during His three years of teaching.
So, why do we think we can’t be useful to the One Who called us to follow Him? If you have given your heart to Him and you are a born-again Christian, you were called by the Holy Spirit into His family. Your position in life or your lack of work to Him. You can be useful in His Kingdom in whatever way He has gifted you with abilities to do. Having money or a position or education doesn’t matter to Him because He equips those whom He calls. We are given gifts and abilities that only we have a real ability to use for Him.
When I titled this as “Love died on a cross”, I didn’t mean that God’s love died on that cross. I meant that the personification of His Love died on the cross. God loves us in such a way that we can’t understand it and His anger toward the people who reject Him is equally powerful but it is still tempered by His love. God can uniquely use each of us to reach people that others may not be able to reach.
God’s love is such that even if we only reach that one person, it is enough. God values each of us to the extent that your soul and mine would’ve been enough to send Jesus to Earth to die for us and save us. Even if we were the only two that were saved. It is very hard to understand compassion and love like that, in fact, we can’t understand it on this side of Heaven.
Like the story that Jesus told of the pearl that the merchant sold everything for just to acquire, a pearl of great price. Each of us is like that pearl to God our Father. We are each worth His Son’s life to gain souls and a place in Heaven. The biggest mistake that the early church made nearly two thousand years ago was using “man-made” wisdom or ideas to bring pagans into the church. Even two centuries past His crucifixion the church didn’t resemble the gatherings of believers that began the church in the late first century.
The divisions that have happened over the centuries since then show even more how easily Satan has gained a foothold in the church. There is a remnant of believers who embody the teachings of Jesus as much as possible today but it seems to be getting smaller. I pray that there will be a revival of faith in the church before He comes back. It is sorely needed today.
