For thought and meditation

[rl69]

He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. —Isaiah 53:3 Jesus Christ was, according to the Bible, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He knows and understands the pain and hurt deep inside your soul when you have lost someone you love. John 11:35 tells us, “Jesus wept.” Tears rolled down His cheeks, tears of sympathy for Mary and Martha for all the sorrow that is caused by sin and death. And in that sense, Jesus has wept with us as well. Death never was God’s plan in the beginning. But now, because of the entrance of sin into the human race, all of us will die one day. Some will live longer than others, but we all will die. And we think the greatest tragedy is when someone dies young. While this is an extreme tragedy, I don’t think it is the ultimate tragedy. I think the ultimate tragedy is when a life has been lived to its entire length and has been entirely wasted and squandered on sin. I think of the words of Jim Elliot, who was a modern-day martyr of the faith, put to death as he tried to bring the gospel to a tribe in Ecuador known at the time as the Aucas. Jim was lanced through with a spear, and wrapped around that spear was one of the gospel tracts he and missionary pilot Nate Saint had dropped over their village from the air. In his journal Jim Elliot had written, “I seek not a long life but a full one like Yours, Lord Jesus.” We think that length of life is the ultimate goal. And yes, it’s good to live long. But what is more important is to live right, to do what is right before God. What is more important is to live a life that is pleasing to Him

[USMC87]

Amen for a great lesson and start of the day.

[square butte]

Thank you for the lesson this morning - Plenty of lives wasted in this world, But we do not know what God has planned for each of us

[Goatwhiskers]

Thank you. We must each seek His guidance daily to do His work. GW

[EMC45]

What an awesome word!

[Blackwater]

What a great post! The "modern ethic" is to simply not think about anything that causes us concern or grief. That's simply "avoidance," and has NEVER worked! With death being assured the instant we're conceived, it seems logical and proper that we should think about that a LOT more than we typically do. Unless you know God, it's a scary thought. But it can come, literally, like a thief in the night, and strike us down at any age, any time or in any circumstance. We can never know when our appointed time will be. All we CAN know is that it really doesn't matter if we've become part of the Family of God.

What we regard as "scary" then becomes a release from these fragile, easily hurt bodies and the vagaries of this world, and a transition into another whole realm where we'll never grow old, never die, and never suffer. There are no words to describe how wondrous a fact this truly is, and I won't even try. I really feel for those who've never really tried to find the Truth, but have wasted their days in seeking only their own will's ends. They can have no place in Heaven because only those who've accepted the offer of our Lord, and have been washed "whiter than snow," CAN be admitted to Heaven. And the only other place for them is the one originally prepared to contain Satan forever. Quite a difference!!! But just, when you really think of it. Non-believers will claim that this is "proof that God doesn't really love us," but that's just another willful excuse. God loves us enough to offer to ALL of us, a very real redemption, that we can choose to take or leave as our wills demand, at any given point in our lives. It's US who choose what will be our individual ends, and what one chooses does not and cannot affect any other individual's fate. While we live, we CAN influence each other, to whatever extent others will allow us to. But in the end, we choose our own fates. What could be more just than that?

Death is a certainty. What happens after that is OUR choice, and nobody else's. Period. And we choose daily, but God is always standing there, at the doorway to our hearts, hands outstretched, ready to take our hands, if only we'll extend it to Him. What a wondrous and loving God we serve!