plans

After four thousand years of history repeating since the flood and before, at what point does human kind begin to honestly reflect on all the knowledge and experience and actually learn from its mistakes?  There was a time the educational systems of the world were rooted in the time-tested morals and laser-accurate history (as we currently are becoming more aware through archaeology in and around the Fertile Crescent) of the ancient texts of the Bible.  Once that was put out of the sphere of contemplation and circumspection, the monsters hiding in the human psyche began to rear their heads as never before.  Hope, true hope in something beyond our knowledge has and is being replaced by cynical dream-yarns of Godless and efficient societies, the "utopia" of those who wish to remake morality in their own image.  Its killing us, and its thrilled to do so!

Enlightenment in all its forms has done very little to move our hopelessly derogatory nature.   But the one form that has affected more realistic and bigger leaps from baseness is authentic Christianity.   In its infancy, the motley twelve fellows and other men and women who followed Jesus of Nazareth, were transported from their mundane and varied walks of life to a path that was very clearly antithetical to their former ways of living.  Their stories are all about their flaws being the very tools God used to greatly affect their world.  Their flaws. Really, think about what our world does to people with glaring flaws... Though, if it were possible for humanity to corporately grasp that God works like this in the lives of His creation, His ideas, would it also understand that is something only He can do, and nothing we as humans could ever hope to replicate? 

Of all the religions, only one is wrapped around a character who said that He came from God, and that He was God.  Only one religious character performed many healings and resurrections openly that were reported and recorded by many and varied audiences.  Only one religious character disciplined a storm with his word.  Only one spoke of his purpose in life, and then, having the power to stop mere men from murdering him, laid that power aside to fully complete that mission fulfilling his purpose.  Only one.  Many others spoke words that were very similar to the words he spoke, teaching, virtually, that same lessons of true morality and virtue as he.  These are but reflections as rays of sun off the lapping waves.  None are substantive, none are real, except Jesus of Nazareth.  Historical record does not lie.  The thread of Godliness woven throughout the history of man does not lie.  If you ask Him to reveal Himself, and you seek Him with all of your heart, you will find Him (Jeremiah 29.11-14).

Why do we continue in our bloody paths?  Why do we "kick against the goad" as was asked of the Apostle Paul?  Because we want to be our own authority.  The child wants to be the parent.  The creation defies it Creator.  We want to be God.  We may express it as wanting no God at all, but its the same.  We are damned to folly and foolishness, corporately-you know, "narrow is the road, straight is the way" and all that...  We think we know.  But we are fools.  God knows the number of hairs on your head right this instant.  We can't even do this small task, yet we want to be God.  "Heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool..."  Isaiah 66.1.  We do not even know where or how the spark happens that makes the union of the sperm and egg turn into a person.  Yet we, corporately, reject Him.

Who could have ever thought up such a plan?  A virgin conceives and bears the Christ child.  The authorities catch wind of it and end up murdering every male child under two years old in the area!  But the Child is preserved and grows into a very thoughtful, God-honoring, parent-obeying, focused young man.  After 33 years, everything is set up for the fix of the universe, the healing of all man's woes.  Who triumphs by death?  Who resurrects and is seen by such a great number of people that it is recorded even in secular historical accounts?  What kind of story, what kind of salvation goes like this:

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.  God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.  There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him.  but anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God's one and only Son.  John 3.16-18

The plan is simple.  Believe.  This is the season of believin'.  Look around you.  Lies darken the skies everywhere we can go today.  But what is good?  What is true?  What is Holy?  What brings hope, and light, and life, and clarity to this chaos we live in?  Jesus.  His birth.  His life.  His teachings.  His death.  His resurrection.  His inevitable and soon return. We are covered in flaws.  And our world would crucifies people with flaws.  God sent His own Son to cover our flaws, and to save by mere faith in Him.  What an audacious, crazy plan.