Yes! There is Good News! 11.19.16

The scripture says that God “Causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”(Matthew 5:45) I guess this is somewhat obvious considering there are many out there who do not believe in God, and yet their fields produce crops in abundance. They have food enough to eat. Perhaps as humans who inhabit our planet, this might seem somewhat counter intuitive. But God lets us know that He is not as we are! “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the Earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts,” Isaiah 55:9) I believe that says it quite nicely!

God is God. He is perfect. And so God says to us, “I have set a high bar for you to attain to.” It is not easy to love your enemies, and to pray for them. Be perfect as God is perfect. God knows what he is talking about. There is another place where God talks about wanting to attain perfection - it is found in Matthew 19, where a rich young man wanted to know what he must do to attain eternal life. Jesus, understanding the man and knowing where his heart was, told him to obey the commandments. The man acknowledged he had kept them and wish to know where he lacked. Jesus told him directly, “If you want to be perfect, go sell all your possessions and give to the poor.” Basically Jesus told the man to separate himself from all that was important to him. And so the man went away sad, because he had great wealth.

I believe we all know there isn’t anything we can do to get eternal life; it is the free gift form God for those who believe. So what was Jesus getting at by telling this man these things?

I think Jesus was telling the man that he believed in his wealth more than he believed in God. The man had ‘good news” staring him in the face, literally, the good news of eternal life. But all he could see was his fortune.

Is there something sitting before your eyes that keeps you from seeing your Savior? Or perhaps some wealth you are having a hard time parting with?

There is a song I enjoy seeing where in the chorus says, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the thing of Earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.” Try doing that, and perfection may be just around the corner. Jesus bids you to come to Him.

Until next time