Monday, December 7, 2015
Go to VIDEO here
But
he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we
could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. Isaiah
53:5(NLT)
A bone-chilling
reality hit me last week as I was watching coverage of the San Bernardino
tragedy; the newsperson gave the statistic:
In the U.S. we have more than one mass shooting
every day!
I
tended to think about these high-powered killings as isolated incidents we
encounter occasionally. But, last
Wednesday, day #336th of 2015, San Bernardino became the 354th
mass shooting of the year.[2] And while that was unfolding there was
another mass shooting taking place in Savannah, Georgia. At this rate we will have 385 this year.
The
pain inflicted by this kind of madness chills me to the bone. It also reminds us of the capability of the human
heart to birth and nurture murderous intentions.
We
live in the days of Noah!
The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the
earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and
totally evil. 6 So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on
the earth. It broke his heart.
Genesis 6:5-6(NLT)
Notwithstanding
man’s cruelty and depraved callousness concerning the value of human life, there
is another thought that plays bigger in my mind these days; the cross of Jesus
Christ has never been more winsome to my hurting heart!
John
Stott wrote:
I could never myself believe in God if it were
not for the Cross. In the real world of
pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?[3]
Speaking
of the ministry of Jesus in not only forgiving our sins, but taking them upon
himself, the writer of Hebrews put it this way:
This High Priest of ours understands our
weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin.
Hebrews 4:15(NLT)
If
you carry that thought to San Bernardino, and all the other atrocities of these
days, Jesus didn’t just die for our sins; He took them from us and made
them his. He identified with
my murderous nature; He took everything bad about Russell and carried it all to
the cross.
People
want to make sense of the horror of mass shooting events and other human
depravity. Well…none of it makes any
sense, except in light of the cross, the Gospel’s Good News, that even though we
are covered in sin and moving ourselves farther and farther away from God,
Jesus was not willing to sit comfortably in heaven and not do something.
What
He did was show up, and He understood us, and He willingly gave Himself for us;
and He knows our pain and evil.
But
more than that – more than just knowing, feeling, wishing us help, Jesus did something
about it! And because of the cross the blessed
Holy Spirit of God comes to us in our grief and despair…even as the shell
casings continue to hit the ground.
There
is, and will be, more pain…likely there will be increasing shootings,
earthquakes, mass cruelty and more…and in all of it, the cross is our beacon of
hope and comfort.
For You Today
When
it “hurts so much” that you can’t imagine God is there, remember the cross; His
pain is proof He cares.
[2]
As reported by http://www.shootingtracker.com/ a
mass shooting is where four or more people are murdered in one
event
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