Here's Another Fine Mess

                                                          

I'm old enough to remember Stan and Ollie and that  famous line from Ollie to Stan when things began to dissolve into disarray and chaos "Here's another fine mess you've gotten us into." Not in the theatres mind you.  But on our Black and White TV with reruns that always gave me a chuckle.   

The human race is a mess. We have stuff, want to hold on to that stuff and to make matters worse we desire to acquire more stuff. We can't get enough of stuff. It is a vicious cycle of stuff. Comedian George Carlin even did a bit about it. Very funny because it's very true. People want to be liked and attractive to others. So people spend millions if not billions of dollars on lotions and potions to retain attractiveness and youthful vigor. Some of which we never had in the first place. Stop the wrinkles, firm up that butt, add some bulging muscles to that frame, I need six pac ads, I need a new body.

Fix those imperfections with a little dab here, a little dab there. Heck, how about dabbing everywhere! Pile on the make up, better yet inject the botox. Remake the face, break the nose and surgerically increase the legs for added height. Remold it, inject it, affect it to perfect it. Give yourself a new smooth forehead, cheeks, and eliminate those puffy sagging under the eye bags and wrinkles. Why?

Time is eating away at every sinew of our being. Everything that surrounds us and within us, is running down, has an expiration date, and reveals with age the sorry state of the human race. When truth be known, if you live long enough, everything is going to sag, drift, deform, crinkle, wrinkle, wear out, collapse, and come to a grinding halt.

Science has a term for it. Entrophy. In physics it is a thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system's thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work, often interpreted as the degree of disorder or randomness in the system:"the second law of thermodynamics says that entropy always increases with time" · (yes very true. I feel your pain because I have my own degree of that nastiness) lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder:

No matter what you do about that process of gradual decline, truth is, it is going to win. Like an olympic runner it will cross the finish line and get the gold. Standing at the top of the podium displaying it's trophy in victory. It is never defeated. It always wins and all of us eventually die. Everything will just stop and our physical bodies will succumb to its vicious attacks. People do their best to insist that this is the natural order of things. The evolution of all living things. So the world says.

The simple fact is that everything ages and eventually dies. Death is perfectly natural in this fallen world. So accept it. But most of us don't. So we ignore it. Don't talk about it. Bury it (did I just say that) from our rabid pursuit of life. If we don't speak about it, it will simpy disappear and vanish from our lives. Until reality sits in and it slaps us right in our sagging, wrinkly, aching, stinky meat sacks, face. It's like the end of a movie trailer but says "Coming to a body near you".

So why is there death? The end of life in this world. The Holy Scripture, the Bible, tells us death is the result of sin. The wages of sin is death. (Romans 6:23) Every single human being ever born (except one) by nature of being human has inherited death. “By one man sin entered the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Romans 5:12).

The very first human beings, Adam and Eve, were told not to disobey God but they did, and the penalty for the disobedience was death, which has been handed down to all their posterity. That means you! ("Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—" Romans 5:12)

So what can we do to avoid death? Nothing in and of ourselves. We are tainted through and through. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23) There is nothing righteous we can do because none of us is righteous. And none of us in and of ourselves can be righteous. No so called good works can gain us acceptance for no good work from a sinful human being is good in the sight of God. Because as Jesus the Christ said, "we must be perfect" to elict God's favor. And no one is perfect in the sight of a Holy, Righteous and Perfect God.

A rich young man addressed Jesus with the words "Good teacher." Jesus set Him straight on that "good" description of Himself saying "no one is good except God."

And He is! The Word who was in the beginning with God and is God, in the flesh. "Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. (Heb. 2:14-15)

God's children are all those given to Christ Jesus by God the Father. "In this is love. Not that we loved God... (the human condition is by nature at odds with God, " Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Romans 8:7-8).... but that he loved us and sent His Son to be an atoning sacrifice of our sins. (1 John 4:10)

But as many as received Him, by grace through faith and not of themselves for it is a gift of God, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."(John 1:12-13)

God reaches out to those he calls from darkness to light and from death (eternal) to life (everlasting) Is God calling you, drawing you near, convincing you of His truth? Heed the call. Devour His truth. It's right there in the Bible. You can start at the Gospel of John. Discover who this One really is. Why he came down from heaven. And why He said He is the Way, the Truth and the Life and no one comes to the Father except through Him." (John 14:6)

After you take your last breath and depart this world for eternity it will be too late. For it is appointed once for people to die and then the judgement. And Scripture says it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Jesus the Christ himself said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Receive that joy and peace that is beyond understanding.

For the Savior that gave up evertything for you assures us, " Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." (John 14:27)

As God’s co-workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain. For he says,“In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you. I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation." (2 Cor. 6:2)

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Rom. 10:9) Saved from what you might ask?

He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” (John 3:36) What do God's people inherit?

Jesus says," I give unto them everlasting life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any one snatch them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one. (John 10:28-30)