Desperate God

Desperate God

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God's messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn't let me. Matthew 23:37

The other day I was listening to someone talk about their desperate situation. We humans seem to get into a lot of those. However, most of our ideas about what is a desperate place seem to revolve around money, relationships, jobs, even ministries. I don't minimize the seriousness of any of those, but what we so often miss is that all of us are born into the most desperate of situations. We are born into a sin drenched world, drenched in that very sin ourselves. And the desperation of it all is that we can't do anything about it. The bent towards sin is in our spiritual DNA because it was infused into the human race through Adam and Eve in the Garden. Some call that merely a "myth," but then, none of them can ever explain the intense evil and darkness that has been in this world since what the Bible records as "the fall of man." Humanists keep telling us that we can "evolve" from that evil and darkness, but tell me,as you look around you in our so called, "enlightened" 21st century, where do you see any evidence of that? Our need is desperate, but our hope is in this thought that came to me; in the midst of our most desperate need, we have a Desperate God who is desperate to meet it. Indeed, He has met it in Jesus Christ. He gave His Son to live, die, and be raised for us. He who said He is "the Way, the Truth, and the Life," also said that "No one may come to the Father except through Me." There's an old hymn that goes something like, "What more can He do than He's already done?" At Calvary, it was "done." Christ Himself said, "It is finished." Has it been done in you? Is it finished in you?

That portrait of Christ looking down upon the city of Jerusalem is one of the most powerful in Scripture. He gazes upon a people desperate for a Savior, but rejects the very One the Father sent to them. Where and how have we done the same? If you have never recognized Him for who He is, than likely, you don't truly know how desperate your situation is. My prayer is that you would know Him, personally, as He is, not just know about who He is. Your need is desperate, and a Desperate God has already met it in Jesus Christ. Will you have Him? You may say that you have already received Him for your need of a Savior. Are you receiving Him in the midst of whatever your desperate place is today? Or, are you turning Him away and trying to handle and do everything in your own strength? Is He reaching out to you in order to fully lead your life, but He says to you there, " You wouldn't let Me?"

Desperate need(s) met in Jesus Christ. Is it so for you today? I forget the source of the quote, but you may be familiar with it. "Most men live their lives in quiet desperation." is that you? Are you living out your life in quiet, or perhaps not so quiet, desperation? Your need has been met, fully, in Christ. Have you received Him, or do you turn Him away....... because you will not let Him?

Blessings,
Pastor O