"Lord You Are Good And Your Mercy Endureth Forever... You Are Good... All The Time... All The Time... You Are Good!"
He certainly is good, and He's doing great things through His people all the time.
After worship service, one of my favorite young men on this planet (you know who you are) walked up on stage and began to share his experiences over the past week, in Los Angeles.
When most teenagers his age were lazily wasting their Spring break on video games, texting their friends, or sleeping in, these kids spent their days in the streets of Skid Row, where literally thousands of people have been forgotten and are left to waste away in obscurity. Our team of courageous young men and women were encouraging, feeding and loving the lost. Genuine connections were established. Tears were shed, and lives were permanently altered. This experience in ministry made men of boys, women of girls, and heroes of children.
While we were all still reeling from the stories of the youth missions trip, Pastor John immediately launched into another sermon from his latest series "Famous Last Words".
We found ourselves at the foot of the cross in our mind's eye, observing Jesus' last hours on Earth, prior to His burial, resurrection and ascension. The Son of God; both wholly God and Man, who [up until this point] had never been separated from the love of His Father, was about to complete his work of Salvation. The sky was dark in the middle of the day; literally manifesting the filth of the sins of humanity, past, present and future. Jesus bore all of it on His own shoulders- I can't even begin to imagine the weight of that yoke of burden.
Let's think about that for a second.
According to the Population Reference Bureau, an estimated 106,456,367,669 (that's One Hundred and Six Billion) people have ever lived on this planet. Now, imagine that if each person's sin could somehow be bottled up into a container equating the mass of a single feather (.00125 pounds). The sin of mankind would weigh 133,070,460 pounds! To put things into perspective, the largest commercial aircraft in existence (the Airbus A380) has a dry weight of 'only' 610,000 pounds. In this equation, the sum of the sins of man would weigh the equivalent of 218,148 aircraft! And that's not yet accounting for future generations!
Now, wrestle with the fact that sin isn't something that can easily be measured by man, nor does it carry the insignificant weight or impact of a feather in our lives. The actual load that Jesus had to bear was most certainly immeasurable by human scales. Yet, His blood covered it all- every bit of it. All of your 'stuff', and all of mine. That's a big and strong God!
And just as his mortal body was about to fail, the divine connection to His Father was severed. God the Father had to forsake His Son, because God the Father cannot live where there is sin, and Jesus became sin in order to redeem mankind. He had to go it alone.
Matthew 27:45-46 (Amplified Bible)
45Now from the sixth hour (noon) there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour (three o'clock).
46And about the ninth hour (three o'clock) Jesus cried with a loud voice, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?--that is, My God, My God, why have You abandoned Me [leaving Me helpless, forsaking and failing Me in My need]?
Galatians 3:13 (Amplified Bible)
13Christ purchased our freedom [redeeming us] from the curse (doom) of the Law [and its condemnation] by [Himself] becoming a curse for us, for it is written [in the Scriptures], Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree (is crucified)
That is Love. He's more than enough for me.
I'd like to invite you to return the love that God has shown you, by reaching out and helping someone else. It doesn't have to be monetary. Perhaps all you need to do is pick up a telephone and call a friend or loved one, or take a step out the front door and meet a need in your community.
Good Night
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