Hi, thanks for reading.
It is truly an honor to have your set of eyes scan my sentences and look for errors. Not only have you braved blog after blog with a plastered smile on your face, you are willing to do the same for me. Thanks! Feigned excitement is better than no excitement at all in my opinion! Like reactivating my old Facebook account, creating a blog was just as impulsive (albeit a little more personal). I am a fairly transparent person, but most of my hopes, dreams, and unpublished works are scribbled away in notebooks tucked away from prying eyes. (This was for Hannah's safety, as she had read my diary ten years back and scarred me for life.) A blog calls for transparency, and I will be brave in sharing just as you will be compassionate in reading! To my precious friends, you are worth more than any treasure I could store up! Since I think so fondly of you all, and share my life with you, it would be nearly impossible for me to write without mentioning you. Essentially, I am writing a kind note and sticking it in your lunchbox. Know that I love you and care about you much more than I can convey. I only have one goal in writing this blog, and that is to magnify Christ. Without Him, I would be in the lowest of the lows, stuck in a pit of my own making. I was like this, acutely aware that all of my climbing and scratching to the surface caused me to slip further. Deeper and deeper I fell: depressed, anxious, lethargic, abrasive. And the deeper I fell, the quicker I turned to defense mechanisms and my own selfishness. Yet deep down, I felt like a man lost at sea, coming up to gasp for air only for a heavy wave to come crashing over my head. It's that feeling of being lost in the supermarket and you can't find your mom. Or of when you open your computer to check a score for an exam you didn't study for. It's a sickening feeling--even conjuring it now creates a pool of dread in my stomach. Even more disheartening, there was nothing I could do to change it. A sick person can't heal themselves. Even if we try to beautify it, it makes us even more worse for the wear. I would know--I had pink eye two months ago and shamefully put on mascara. Beautifying sin only blinds us to true life. Thus, I was enslaved to my sin, chained like a prisoner with Stockholm syndrome. I delighted in my sin just as much as I hated it. The fortunate news is that Jesus Christ, God in human form, was sent for the purpose of liberation, restoration, and salvation. He was without sin, yet dwelt among people like you and me: sinners to the very fiber of our existence. A man like you and me, yet completely God. The perfect example of who I was not. Yet Christ did not justly scorn me (as I would have), but had compassion. It isn't that type of compassion that wells in your chest when you watch an ASPCA commercial. It's a powerful compassion that, for the joy set before Him, nailed Him to the cross. He died a death that I deserved! It was in God's great love that I was saved. God had provided Himself as my healer. His Son, Jesus Christ, died for me and you and the ends of the earth, and then rose again on the third day. The evil one's dominion over this earth was overcome! Jesus brought victory! Conquering death with holes in his arms, He tore the chains that Satan gripped, setting the captive and the enslaved free! His death and resurrection gives us true life, a life found only in God's Son. And it is for all people who seek Him. God is not stingy with His love--it is matchless in power! (Use all the exclamation marks!) Knowing this, seeing that I had nothing to lose and everything to gain, believed in Christ. Our response to this wonderful news is to believe that Jesus Christ is God's Son, that He died and rose again for the sins of the world, to turn away from our sin and turn to Christ in faith. It is a simple gospel created before the beginning of time by a complex God. This is His story of redemption of His people. He is the only one capable of transforming us. Even after His death and resurrection, He gives us a Helper in the form of His Spirit to help us. Jesus said, "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you." (John 14:26) Wow! Given the gifts of eternal life, the Holy Spirit, a relationship with God, and real truth? We are so undeserving! The Trinity of God so highly exalted. So magnificently honored. So lavish with love. I would be a fool not to share His story. I would be a fool to write anything that wasn't glorifying Him. If you are curious about this new life, come and ask me! I am the least of all His people, yet made new in Christ.
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