Reaching Out to You

I have a friend who is a pastor who has a Question and Answer bulletin that he emails out several times a month. It was so full of meat this week, I asked him if I could share this week's with you and he consented.

QUESTION:
If God is all powerful why doesn’t He just remove all the wickedness in the world?

ANSWER:
If He did He’d have to remove you. Well He would also have to remove me and every other human being on the planet too. We generally want Him to end all wars and criminal activities as long as He leaves us alone to freely do as we please. For God’s actions against wickedness to be complete He would have to include all our lies, impure thoughts, covetous attitudes, lack of love and failure to do the good we could. If God wiped His mighty hand across His universe tonight and declared every trace of wickedness to be gone, who would still be here after midnight?

Romans 5:12 declares, ”Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, so death spread to all men, because all sinned.” Thus all humanity is responsible for various levels of sin and wickedness, rather than God. He could have wired us to never sin, but we would be more like machines than human. Remember when you could pull the string in the back of the little dolls and they would talk? How would you like to be married to one of those? Every morning pulling the string for the static sound of, “I love you.” You wouldn’t enjoy it and God desires real love too.

On one hand God wants everybody to freely choose Him over evil (1Tim 2:4). On the other hand our sins have separated us all from God (Isa 59:2). This free will stuff is risky business when one considers the price tag of separation for sins (Rom 6:23). Jesus was so stressed at the thought of separation from the Father that He sweat great drops of blood from His head the night before He was crucified (Luke 22:44). The innocent Messiah Jesus became the greatest sufferer of all time in paying the ultimate price for our wickedness (Isa 52:14). This sketch of the infant and thorns by Lyle Trimmer captures the purpose of Jesus coming. He lived His entire human life under the shadow of the crucifixion to unite this lost human race with God.

Buried under the wrappings of many a Christmas gift, and hidden behind the glitter of Madison Avenue, is the greatest gift ever known to mankind. He came wrapped in rags lying in a manger and longs to live in your heart if you‘ll let Him. Jesus bore the sins of the world on His cross, but separation from the Father terrified Him. How can people be nonchalant? Jesus is more than a gift. He’s the way out of wickedness. He is absolutely, positively everything pertaining to life itself, and He’s reaching out to you.
Pastor Huck

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Jesus is the free gift of Christmas--God reaching out to you--your heart, a manger. Don't let another Christmas go by without inviting Him in.

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