Helplessness. There’s not another feeling like it. Living through something that is beyond your ability to help someone else or unable to cope in your own situation may have given you that feeling. Watching a situation from a distance where there is nothing you can do can give you that feeling, too. That is bad news.
Each one of us is actually living in that condition, even if you may not be aware of it. With that we also know that someday my life and your life will be finished and end.
That helpless condition is known as living apart from God. Inside each of us is a void, an emptiness that only He can fill. We were created to live in relationship with Him, but that was broken when Adam and Eve sinned and broke that relationship. It’s been broken ever since; but God resolved that so we could live in relationship with Him. He made a plan and executed that plan while we were in this helpless state in the form of Jesus’ coming to earth in order to die and rise again to permanently fix our helplessness. That’s the Good News!
“When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.”
(Romans 5:6-8 NLT)
The best news is that God has an open invitation extended to each and every person. If we respond to that invitation our lives will change, both here on earth and in an eternal relationship with Him when this life is done. We will want to live in connection with Him in our daily life so that we are serving Him and others, not ourselves
(our needs are met as we live that life with Him). Our response to God’s invitation:
“But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.” (1 John 1:9 NLT)
As the above piece says, we need to tell Him (confess) our wrongdoings to God and invite Him to be the centre of our life and plans.
God’s promise and guarantee back to us when we respond to his invitation:
“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17 NLT)
The above piece gives assurance of a new life here on earth when we walk in right relationship with him in our daily life. Below is His promise or guarantee of eternal life once we have responded his invitation and this life is over. Talk about your ‘two for one!’ Only God would love us enough to give us all of this evidence of His love for us, as well as give us the opportunity to respond to His caring and love for us.
“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16 NLT)
I trust this Easter season will be one of new beginnings for you. The Good News of Jesus’ love for you and what He went through for you outweighs and totally conquers the Bad News of the helpless condition we are born into. Turn your ‘bad news’ into ‘good news’ – He waits with outstretched arms for you to come to Him, no matter what you’ve done or thought. His love is unconditional – the decision to respond is yours.
Readers are invited to write Gloria at: gloriawes@hotmail.com.