Thursday, August 14, 2014
“For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23 KJV).
When life disheartens, let us be assured in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Person who never disappoints.
The recent, tragic suicide of comedian and actor Robin Williams was the consequence of life’s problems becoming too overwhelming. Dear friends, this most unfortunate event demonstrates that material wealth and popularity do not guarantee happiness. Celebrities are not super-humans, just as human as we are, and also subject to this world’s temptations.
People often surround themselves with power, money, houses, lands, sex, friendships and marriages, vacations, and drugs and alcohol, attempting to fill the void in their heart that only the Lord Jesus Christ can fill. The more they fill that vacuum with things that do not belong, the emptier and more hopeless they feel. While suicide is not the answer, the human heart is deceitful (Jeremiah 17:9), enough to cause us to think it is. Nay, the answer to life’s problems is not our death, but the answer to our sin problem is Jesus Christ’s death. Depression strikes individuals, whether rich or poor, with absolute hopelessness, that there is no way out of life’s difficulties. It distracts lost and saved alike from the hope, solution, forgiveness, love, grace, acceptance, and peace God offers us in and through His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.
Beloved, may we not have misplaced dependencies, may we not lapse into depression, may we not commit suicide, and may we not look down upon depressed individuals and those who commit suicide (we, being equally human, are not immune to depression or suicide). Sin ever so complicates life but there is such simplicity in Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 11:3).
Philippians 2:16 says that we Christians are to “hold forth the word of life,” to offer the Gospel of the Grace of God—Jesus Christ’s death, bloodshed, burial, and resurrection as sufficient payment for our sins (1 Corinthians 15:3,4)—to any and all we meet. There is life in Jesus Christ, eternal life (today’s Scripture), and may we focus more on that everlasting life than the temporary troubles of this one! 🙂
333 Words of Grace 