I have just come away from a lovely evening game with my clan. We played “Google Feud”. Google has created a game in which they give you the first part ofa popularly googledsentence or question and the object of the game is to guess the way in which most “googlers” completed the question. It was fun and we laughed a lot.
I can’t help but come away in thought regarding the things that are most googled though. Here are just a few that came up tonight:
Why does my dad—the most common answers were—hate me, yell at me, or not love me or want me
Does my boss—the most common answers were—-like me, or not like me
Can Jesus—–help me, forgive me, microwave a burrito (yep, it was thereI tell you.)
So do people really go to google to get answers to such questions? When you have an all knowing search engine, who needs the Bible, who needs God?
For starters, if you aren’t in the Bible, all that you have been told about yourself and life by the world are lies. We have been told that “everyone is born equal and innocent and self sufficient, and that the world is a pleasant, harmless place. We are born free. If we are in chains now, it is someone’s fault, and we can correct it with just a little more intelligence or effort or time.” “These lies claim to tell us who we are and omit everything about our origin in God and our destiny in God. They talk about the world without telling us that God made it. They tell us about our bodies without telling us that God made it. They instruct us in love without telling us about the God who loves us and gave himself for us.”
So let us get the record straight. You were made by God, he gave you an eternal spirit with a physical body. Your physical body is meant to die; Paul referred to it as a tent, a very temporary dwelling. Your spirit is meant to live in eternity; preferably with God inheaven where there is no night, and Jesus himself is the light, if you choose Jesus and know that he is God. Let every premature death that we have witnessed in recent days be a reminder to us thatnone of usis meant to live here forever. If God had not banned Adam an Eve from the garden, and they ate of the Tree of Life after choosing Satan’s way, then we might live in this fallen planet with ailing bodies forever, and it would be torture. But we have a new heaven and a new earth to look forward to, restoration, redemption and hope.
So let us look to the Creator of the universe for answers to life’s biggest questions. Does your Father love you? Yes, he chose to die for you. His love for you transcends your ability to grasp it. There are no sins worse than any other, there is no greater judgement held out for any particular sin, Jesus paid for it all, and you are forgiven in Christ Jesus.
Can Jesus….set you free? Yes–from anything and everything.
Dennis Jernigan–one of our modern day hymn writers (“You are my strength when I am week, You are the treasure that I seek, You aremy all in all”)tells of growing up in the church, wanting to overcome some things in his life and he says, “for years, no one ever told me Jesus could set me free.” So let the church proclaim,Jesus can set you free.
Our hope is not in this world, or in the ways of this world. “As long as we think the next election might eliminate crime or establish justice or another scientific breakthrough might save the environment or another pay raise might push us over the edge of anxiety into a life of tranquility, we are not likely to risk the arduous uncertainties of the life of faith. A person has to get fed up with the ways of the world before he, before she, acquires an appetite for the world of grace.” But the world of grace is the biggest and best adventure on which you could ever embark. Most of its realities are upside down and backwards from this physical world in which we live. Butthe realities of the world of grace in Jesus are life-abundant life, love, and truth. The Bible tells us things are likely going to get worse around here before they get better. But we have an anchor for our souls (Heb 6:19), One who promises to give peace when we have trouble in this world (Jn 16:33), and One who promises to be with us when wepass through the waters (Is 42:3). Google could never possibly giveus the factsstraight, but we can still have fun asking.
quotes from “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction” by Eugene Peterson
