Life is complicated due to sin bringing death, but that answer does not always satisfy. I get it! It sounds hackney. A throw-away answer in the middle of pain when there are no real good words to bring comfort. Yet, it is a part of the answer. It’s the tails on the coin of God is Lord of heaven (transcendent) and earth (imminent).
How are those two sides of one coin? Nothing is equal to God, so I speak figuratively. He loves us and wants us to choose him back. We almost every time choose autonomy, our own way. Those ways lead to death. We experience that pain and look for ways out of it.
We choose drugs, sex, money, things that were meant for boundaries, but we abuse them to remove the pain sin brings while it kills us. But God…
In our pain, God waits to heal. In our sickness, God waits to comfort… In our loss, God waits to make himself known.
Our world is converging to the end of what it is today. While we are here, the side of the coin is sin and death that has already been defeated in Jesus; we are still experiencing it. It will be done away with when God’s full plan to set up a new heaven and earth is brought to fruition. While here, we get to make the choice of where we will put our faith. In whom will we offer our service. Like, Bob Dylan sang, “you’re gonna serve somebody.” Why not choose the one that doesn’t destroy you while you live?
All other gods are hard taskmasters; sex brings diseases; drugs kill our organs; the love of money leads to all kinds of evil. God brings peace through this mendacious experience on earth if you belong to him. God gives joy when life is most difficult, in the loss.
If you are reading this, you have a choice. Continue living the side of the coin that perpetuates misery, death, and that death outside the presence of God. That is misery and then misery again.
We all experience the effects of sin and death. That doesn’t need to be experienced alone. Flip the life coin over and live with God in His Son. Sin and death have already been chosen for us. We were born. Simple as that. How we go through life, experiencing all its trials and effects, is a choice we can make. Which side of the coin are you living on?
Last night I received news that one of my students lost his dad. My heart breaks, yet I know The One Who Comforts. While I know the pain of loss, I don’t know his and his mom’s pain. I ask God to make his presence known in a real and tangible way. They don’t have to do this thing called life and loss alone.
Neither do you! But God doesn’t want to be Lord for a moment, but for our lifetime. Pray with me as they and many hurt over losses experienced lately.
Jesus said, “I have told you these things so that you will have peace (the heads side of the coin). In this world, you WILL HAVE trouble (that’s the tails side). But take heart, I have overcome the world (the head side again). God will not be outmatched. Of that, we can be certain.
Blessings
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