What We're Worth

I’m a Christian, not a humanist. Humanists make the mistake of viewing human beings as “the measure of all things.” Although they would admit that nobody is perfect, humanists as a whole are atheistic in their outlook, and believe that humanity is ultimately perfectible in and of itself, needing no so-called divine assistance to someday achieve absolute utopia.

As a convinced Christian theist, however, I find it regrettable that so many of my fellow believers seem compelled to veer off the road of truth into the opposite ditch, and to be convinced that there is nothing good at all to say about humanity.

Men and women are fallen creatures. God made them in His own image. Good. Innocent. Able to choose the right. A blessed people whom He placed in a utopian environment. But Eve and Adam chose to break the rules. Break fellowship with God. Break their perfect lives into shattered fragments. Break their own innocent natures into a cracked mirror.

And, as every nightly newscast will remind us, our first parents passed this brokenness on to all of us. Sinful natures. Original sin. Radical corruption that affects every part of our beings and our lives. This is why the humanist dream of a godless utopia is forever out of reach.

But, you know, when I hear it said, or implied, that fallen human beings have nothing to offer to God apart from their sin and their brokenness, something in me cringes.

I recently heard a sermon that urged Christians to see unsaved people as more than just “sinners.” We must also see them as “sufferers”--victims of a fallen, troubled, diseased, sin-sick world. The preacher encouraged us to come alongside men and women in their need and their distress the way Jesus did. To resist the tendency to carp on their sinfulness and imply that their suffering was in just payment for God’s broken laws.

The preacher cited the three dubious “comforters” of Job, who tried to counsel and “fix” their suffering friend by urging him to repent of his hidden sins. In effect, all their long-winded platitudes accomplished was to push Job close to the edge of insanity, almost forcing him to call God’s justice into question, demanding an audience in which the Deity should explain Himself!

When I read the words of Scripture, however, I see humanity in an additional light: another dimension besides those of “sinner” and “sufferer.” The Bible also describes us as “salvageable.”

I want to be careful here. I’m not claiming that God has elected to save and redeem people based on some virtue of righteousness He sees in us. Both the psalmist and the apostle have rightly said, as they explained God’s view of man: “There is none righteous; no, not one.” Jesus Himself told one of his admirers: “There is only One who is good, that is God.”

But Jesus also told the Samaritan woman at the well of Sychar: “God seeks such worshipers, who worship Him in spirit and in truth.” If there is none righteous...and if no human being is good in His eyes, where is God going to find the worshipers He is seeking?

Obviously, He is looking on at least some human “sinners” and “sufferers” as “salvageable.” In other words, we humans have at least one thing to offer God besides our sin and our brokenness…

We are potential worshipers.

No, God doesn’t need our worship. He got along just wonderfully for all eternity past without it. And yet, for some mysterious, incomprehensible reason, He desired to create, permit the fall of, and then redeem through the saving work of His Son, a worshiping company of people like us!

For some strange, jaw-dropping reason, this will bring Him joy, glory, and satisfaction.

Not one of us has started out with even the faintest desire to “glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” In fact, we begin our lives totally self-centered and beating a path away from God with dust flying in our wake. But each of us bears the mark of our Creator’s image--cracked and warped as it might be. Each of us experiences God’s “common grace,” including a hunger for justice, an appreciation of beauty, an admiration for orderliness, among other things.

When post-diluvian people began building the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11, the Lord came down and “confused their language” so that they would scatter over the face of the earth. The explanation was very interesting: God said, “if they have begun to do this, nothing they propose to do will be withheld from them.” Obviously, a united mankind would have only enhanced and hastened their degeneration into more heinous sins.

Yet, along with that motive, I suspect another grudging implication: The god-like capability of humanity needed to be harnessed and channeled by a direct act of their Creator, or else it would have led to a situation similar to the pre-flood civilization. The one God decided had to be wiped out, save for Noah and company.

There is something grand about man. Even fallen man. David considered the vast, spangled heavens above and wondered aloud to God: “What is man, that You are mindful of him, or the son of man, that You visit him?” In all that vast expanse, why is it that its even vaster Creator would devote such attention to the human race?

Why is the sin of people so offensive to Him? Why would He create an eternal hell for those who refuse to repent, where their crimes will be dealt with through countless ages? Why would He send the Son of His eternal love to die for wrath-doomed sinners like me?

Not for anything He saw in me that deserved His mercy and grace…

But at least...at the very least...He saw in me a potential worshiper, did He not?

MNA

2/12/2017

(974 words)

Mercy...Who Needs It?

(a message based on Matthew 18:21-35)

In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, everything was “very good”... including people. There was no strife, no sadness, no sin. And therefore, there was no need for mercy or forgiveness. Nothing had happened yet that required a just punishment, and therefore, no one had to decide whether or not to give out mercy instead of justice.

For that is what mercy is: rather than demanding what somebody owes you, according to justice, a merciful person chooses to give that person a break. To at least be patient. Maybe even forgive the debt completely, the way the king in Jesus’ story chose to do. The king showed mercy to a man who owed him a huge debt he could never have paid back. Why? Jesus said it was “out of pity for him.” The king felt compassion for the man and his family, and so he showed mercy by forgiving the debt.

In the beginning, back in the Garden of Eden, what did Adam and Eve owe to God? In a word, EVERYTHING: Life and breath, health and food, water and shelter, beauty and purpose, the glory of knowing and serving and sweet fellowship with God. All they could ever become and all they would ever wish for. All God asked for in return was for them to trust and obey Him. He didn’t expect them to “pay him back” for His kindnesses, for that was a debt they never could have repaid!

The first servant in Jesus’ story owed the king ten thousand talents. One estimate of just ONE talent of money places the amount at what a typical worker would earn in twenty YEARS. So if we do the math, and assume that the servant really intended to pay the king back what he owed...he would have had to work for at least two hundred THOUSAND years to do it! Obviously, Jesus wanted to make a serious point here, by choosing a ridiculously large amount for the debt the servant owed. He wanted to show that any plan he had to pay the king back was totally hopeless.

When Adam and Eve chose to disobey God’s command not to eat the forbidden fruit from the forbidden tree, they believed the serpent’s lie. He told them “You shall not surely die.” God had made it plain that disobedience would bring death. “In the day you eat of it,” God told them, “you shall surely die.” And, being a just and holy God who always keeps His word, His justice demanded that Adam and Eve should be put to death. Because of their disobedience, the guilty couple owed God their very lives!

But, just like the kind, compassionate king in Jesus' parable, God took pity on Adam and Eve, and on all their descendants. Even though they had to leave Paradise and suffer in a fallen world, and eventually die physically, God showed them mercy by promising a path to victory over the devil and a Savior who would one day pay off the debt of their sin. Actually, this promise was given to the serpent. God told him, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed. He will crush your head, and you will bruise his heel.” This was the first declaration that the Savior of the world would come, namely Jesus Christ.

Well, Jesus eventually did come. And He had been teaching His disciples about how we should treat those who sin against us. He told them they should be willing to forgive and receive back a brother or sister who is willing to admit their fault and turn from their sin. Peter, who was often the spokesman for the disciples, came to Jesus with a question. How many times were they expected to forgive the same person, presumably for the same kind of offense? Is there a numerical LIMIT for one’s willingness to forgive, after which justice has been delayed long enough?

We shouldn’t be too hard on Peter for asking this. All of us have been sinned against by others. All of us have seen sinful people getting away without being punished, and have felt angry and indignant about it. After all, each of us is made in the image of our Creator, who loves justice and righteousness. We long for a just world where everyone is treated fairly and all the wrong things are made right. Jesus even said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.”

Jesus answered Peter’s question, telling the disciples--and us--that “seven times” is far too small a number! “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times!” (Or, seventy times seven). In other words, the demands of mercy far outweigh the requirements of justice. At that point, Jesus tells his story of the unforgiving servant. He wants His followers to know who it is that really has the right to administer true justice, and the merciful way He has of dealing with all His servants.

Like the servant and his family were to the king in the parable, all our lives are in the hands of God, who can deal with us in any way He pleases. He alone has the right to sell us, use us, cause us to live or to be ill or well, or even to die. We are His creatures and we belong to Him. The Psalmist says in Psalm 100, “We are His people, the sheep of His pasture.” It would certainly be a fearful thing if God were not so kind and gracious, so loving and faithful. What if He delighted in inflicting pain and agony and tragedy on all His creatures instead of supplying them with all they need to live and grow and thrive?

And yet, rather than thanking and praising our good Creator and King, how do we treat Him? Do we often forget to pray and thank Him? Do we often complain and forget how much we owe the Lord for all His blessings? I know I do. I constantly need to be reminded of the enormous debt I owe to Him. A debt of gratitude, of love, of worship, of obedience to His commandments. And every opportunity I lose to pay that debt, is one I can never get back. It is a debt that can never be repaid. Even in a thousand lifetimes.

But the hopeless servant was shown mercy by his king. “Out of pity for him,” the master forgave him the entire debt he could never have paid. What a burden was lifted from the servant’s shoulders in that one moment! He entered the king’s presence with the weight of the world on him, and left that throne room completely debt-free! He was a forgiven debtor, without a care in the world.

Sadly, though, that’s not the end of the story. Apparently, the king’s kindness to him had made little or no difference in the servant’s own wicked heart. All the man could think about after leaving the throne room, was finding his fellow servant to demand back what he himself was owed.

Let’s consider for a minute the depth of this kind of wickedness. If the king had NOT shown mercy to him, forgiving his own enormous debt, then the amount the other servant owed to him would have seemed next to nothing! In fact, compared to what he owed the king, it would have been just a drop in the ocean! And the money would have been the king’s anyway, even if the first servant did collect it.

But this wicked, ungrateful servant chose to insist on justice, rather than show mercy. Instead of being melted and molded by the generous king’s example, instead of having his own heart moved to feel pity and show compassion on others, instead of being instructed by the abundance of forgiveness he himself had received, this first servant had the second poor wretch thrown into prison. And when the other servants informed the king about it, the king was filled with anger!

Jesus is telling His servants that all of them NEED mercy, and day by day, year by year, all of us RECEIVE mercy from the generous hand of our kind Creator and King. Every time we sin, every minute we withhold from God the worship and glory and honor and obedience we owe to Him, we are piling up a mountain of debt we can never hope to pay. And yet, because of the grace of God, and the once-for-all sacrifice of His Son Jesus on the cross, our sin debt has been paid!

Do you believe this? Do I believe this? Truly believe that my mountain of debt before God has been paid and forgiven? To really accept and believe it, I need a changed heart. You need a changed heart. A heart that is clean and new and loves God and His ways. A heart that longs to show the same mercy and grace to others that I’ve received from my Master.

Adam and Eve’s children, all their descendants, have proven again and again that it is much easier to insist on “our rights” and demand justice from others, than to love mercy and walk humbly with our God. The first, unmerciful servant was handed over to the jailers because he failed to show his own Master’s mercy to a fellow servant. In that way, the king was making a clear statement: You are surely no true servant of mine!

A “good and faithful servant” of our Father’s kingdom will do what he sees his Father doing, acting as He acts, forgiving as He forgives, loving as He loves, and, as Jesus taught us, “doing unto others what we would have them do unto us.” Let us all be quick to show mercy and forgive, and leave justice in the hands of the Lord. Truly, an unforgiving heart...is an unforgivEN heart!

Jesus, God's Son, paid our unpayable debt so we'd be freed from sin's slavery, and out of gratitude, emulate God by showing mercy to others.

Have YOU trusted this merciful Savior, and turned from your sin to follow Him?

Friends Forever!

“Peace on earth and mercy mild; God and sinners reconciled!
Joyful, all ye nations rise--join the triumph of the skies!”
                                                              -- from a Christmas carol

One of the least contemplated needs of men and women in our secular age, is the need for reconciliation with their Maker. Yet, know it or not, that is humanity’s most pressing need--far more so than self-esteem, shelter, or even daily bread.

Of course, for two parties to be reconciled, the first step is certainly an awareness that they are, in fact, estranged from one another. Either one or the other party has committed some crime or offense that has caused the animosity that exists--an offense that MUST be addressed before there can be an end to hostilities and a peaceful resolution.

I would venture that only a tiny minority of folks today are aware that human beings are truly born enemies of God. Most people would be horrified if you even suggested such a notion. “What, ME? God’s ENEMY? That’s ridiculous! Why, there’s no reason God could have any grievance with me...I’ve never even thought about Him enough to give Him any grounds for a complaint!”

But what most people are apt to forget, is that we are living, moving, having our being, as created beings in a created world. Each of us owes his or her life--body, soul and substance--to a Supreme Ruler who made us for a PURPOSE. Rather than occupy ourselves with discovering that purpose and fulfilling it, the vast majority would rather ignore God completely, all the while enjoying all the pleasures and benefits His creation and His providence gives them.

In short, we are REBELS at heart. We could be compared with an infestation of termites in a large, grand house. The homeowner discovers this tiny colony of enemies within his walls, a host of creatures who are enjoying themselves by eating away at what their human host has built, not giving a tiny termite thought that they’ve angered this host in any way.

Ignoring and offending God with our sins has become so second-nature to us, that if and when He ever calls the exterminators to come and deal with the infestation of His home, our jaws would surely drop open and we’d be shocked and amazed.

The sad difference between us and the insects is that we don’t really need the hammer to fall to inform us that we are overstepping the moral boundaries our Maker set for us. We need no stone tablets with graven commandments to tell us that we are not what He means for us to be. The voice of our conscience is ever whispering...sighing...pleading...screaming to us, reminding us that this world isn’t all there is. That there is another Hand at work, another Verdict to be pronounced, another World beyond this one, where we will be held accountable for the lives we’ve lived.

There is a post-war Tribunal at which all the crimes against our Supreme Ruler will at last be fully addressed. All His enemies will be judged with perfect justice and fairness. And there will be no “higher court” to which one may appeal.

In the writings of the New Testament, reconciliation is a major, if not THE major, theme. The Apostle Paul was once a staunch enemy of Jesus Christ and His followers. He spent several years as a young Pharasaic scholar, doing all he could to persecute and stamp out the infant church of the crucified Nazarene.

But one day, on his way to Damascus, the risen and ascended Jesus shone on him with a blinding light and Paul was converted. Christ Himself called him to a new life and a new mission to carry His saving message of reconciliation to the far reaches of the Roman world. Eventually, Paul made it to Rome, the capital of the empire itself, where he faced capital punishment under the persecution of Emperor Nero.

Along the way, Paul’s mission included the authorship of many letters to the churches he helped establish during his journeys. But his lengthiest letter, to the Romans, was written to believers he’d never met. He wanted to give them a thorough, scholarly treatise on the roots, the nature, and the meaning, of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Who He was, why He came, why He died and rose again, and how His finished work could benefit all who would believe in Him.

How does this Jesus, this workman and preacher from Galilee, bring the animosity between man and God to an end? Here are some of Paul’s immortal words:

“For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have received this reconciliation” Romans 5:10-11

Paul, former enemy and eventual apostle of Christ, never got over the amazing grace that caused Jesus to die in his place on the cross. He continued to rejoice, as do all of Jesus’ people, that their Lord didn’t stay in the tomb. Because He lived a perfect life on our behalf and died for the sins of all believers...because He ascended to heaven’s throne and now rules and intercedes for us, our reconciliation with the Maker we’ve offended is guaranteed to last forever.

Because Christ died, our war with God can be over. Simply trust and submit to Him.

Because Christ lives, that war, once over, can never begin again. We are reconciled FOREVER!


(960 words)

The Feeding Trough

The days come ‘round again to read
of a place where creatures come to feed
and satisfy many a basic need:
for bodies a meal...for spirits, a creed.

For the wealthy, and those less well-off,
for the unschooled and the college prof,
the souls that pray, and those who scoff
all repair to the feeding trough.

For humans, no less than bird or beast,
from hunger’s shackles must be released,
be it a bare crust or a sultan’s feast...
our flagging forces must be increased.

So, who provides for our needs each day
and fills the feeding trough with hay?
Who pities the fevered, famished stray
that wanders headstrong out and away?

And what do his creatures need the most
from the treasuries of this kindly host?
Are our hearts and bodies too engrossed
to hail our Lord with a thankful toast?

For in the night this Lord came flying
to the aid of lost ones dead and dying;
O see Him there in the manger lying,
with His fouled creatures identifying...

In the feeding trough of Bethlehem
see the Baby--Heaven’s priceless gem--
who is born to feed the least of them:
even those who’d mock him and condemn!

They borrowed a manger for His birth
when their own Creator graced this earth.
Let us feed on Christ with thankful mirth:
Bread of endless life...Wine of wondrous worth!


by Mark Aikins
December 13, 2015

Challenged and Cheered

Paul writes in Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” No sooner does the apostle explain this, than he proceeds to paint a very painful picture of the human race. A race of people doomed to experience the wrath of God for their sins.

The point that Paul is making is that the gospel of God--the “good news” regarding Jesus, God’s only Son--can only be seen as good news as it is proclaimed against a backdrop of a fallen world. This is a world that is rendered fallen by a rebellious, treasonous, disobedient human family, of which each of us is a guilty member.

This bad news about people marks out the irreconcilable “no-man’s land” that separates so-called liberal Christianity from what may rightly be called evangelical Christianity. Full-orbed biblical faith in Jesus Christ is based on truth which insists on a radical antithesis.

When I use the label “liberal” here, I am referring to those who believe in unifying humanity under a banner of fallacious hopes and wishful thinking. These well-intentioned folks want to see peace and healing for a hurting and divided mankind...but they believe they can be attained by basically human, non-miraculous methods.

This became clearer to me recently as I pondered the apparent aims of some spiritually minded poets. These writers urge us to look within ourselves to discover the common ground and universal desires that can unite us all. They imply (or preach openly) that if flawed, mistaken, dissatisfied men and women would rally together under a banner of brotherhood, or a love of nature, or a desire for self-preservation, then...all would be well. After all, we are all “in the same boat together,” and together we are sufficiently equipped to get things right in the end.

Only a casual glance through the pages of Scripture will show that this view falls far short of the plight of mankind as the Bible describes it. Rather than facing a self-perfecting building project that merely requires a beefed-up quantity of concerted effort, humanity is, in reality, in the middle of a to-the-death cosmic combat of God-sized proportions! Our Creator is extremely mad...because people are extremely bad. And eternity in either a real Heaven, or a real Hell, hangs in the balance.

This biblical picture presents too sharp an antithesis to the liberal mind. In order to avoid such a God-vs-Man confrontation, one must do one’s best to equalize the two sides in the conflict. The liberal must either inflate man’s goodness and perfectibility, or deflate God’s nature as powerful and holy sovereign. Or both. Making man more god-like than the Bible paints him, or making God more man-like, is the key.

A favorite tool of such theological makeovers is modern textual criticism: taking the plain language of Scripture concerning God, His nature, His demands, His action, judgments and decrees, and re-interpreting it to render it more manageable on a purely human level. To a large degree, the biblical God has died the death of a thousand re-interpretations. Liberal theologians have taken God’s wrath, laws, miraculous powers and sovereign providence--even His plan to save sinners, and have reduced them to symbolic signposts that humans can use on their own journey toward self-perfection.

Those divine qualities, no longer seen as simple and factual, have been ripped from their spatial and historical context and boiled down into Aesop-like moralisms. In the modern theologian’s mind, there’s no genuine conflict--there’s only a moralistic stew where all of man’s good intentions (including his assumptions about God) are simmering together on the fire until we all wake up to the fact that we’re really all the same. All is One. There is no real antithesis to worry about.

When I, as a Christian poet, seek to reflect my faith in beautiful verses, the resultant lines cannot avoid the antithetical. To me, the truth of the biblical faith is just that: truth. And the truth forces one to make distinctions. The universe is not all “A”...it is also “non-A.” The reason that humanity is divided is that we’ve sinned against our Maker. The existence of evil in our world and in ourselves makes this perfectly plain, even if it wasn’t for the biblical testimony.

Furthermore, now that our Maker has provided a way to be saved from the punishment our sins have earned--Jesus--we turn our noses up at that gracious way, and go on devising our own ways--including the self-perfectionist path of the liberal.

The call of God from time immemorial has always been, “Repent”--to turn from non-A, and return back to A. This was the antithetical call of the judges and prophets of the Old Testament, the call of the Christ, as well as His forerunner and emissaries in the New Testament. To repent is to surrender before the challenge of God that stands against the proud, false hopes of those who imagine salvation is within their own grasp.

The Christian antithesis is that only the perfect work and atoning death of the divine, historical Jesus can provide a saving record of righteousness for sinners in the courtroom of a holy God. Every other path of salvation is “non-A.”

The liberal thinker may ask: “Are things really that desperate? Is the message of Jesus really so stark, judgmental and exclusive? Isn’t there room to flex, to leave our doors open a crack for sincere Buddhists or Jews or Hindus or Muslims? Can’t we all get along on a platform of good intentions?”

To those with such hopes I would simply point to the manger...the cross...the empty tomb...and ask the question: “Why?” If our good intentions were always good enough, who, then, really needs a Savior? Jesus said He came to earth “not to bring peace...but a sword.” He became the most challenging, antithetical figure who ever lived. But in love, He gave His life “as a ransom for many, to bring us to God.” And He claimed to be God’s only Way. His sole, unique Savior for the lost. That’s His challenge.

Only those who surrender before the challenge of Christ’s gospel, can truly be cheered by it.

Mark Aikins
April 12, 2015

Unburied Treasure

“Lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven, 

where neither moth nor rust corrupt, and thieves do not break in and steal...

for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” 

(Matthew 6:20-21)

Bilbo Baggins the hobbit gazed down miserably from Ravenhill, into the valley between two great arms of the Lonely Mountain. There before him a vicious battle was raging, pitting dwarves, elves and men against a ghastly host of goblins and their allies, the evil wargs.

His adventure had come to an end. Chosen by Gandalf the wizard and Thorin the dwarf-lord as the “burglar” who would spy out the dark passages of the Mountain and venture into the fearsome lair of the wicked dragon, Smaug, Bilbo, with the aid of a magical ring, had amply fulfilled his contract. He had rescued Thorin and his twelve companions several times during their journey, had played a key role in discovering the way into the mountain halls, and had even reported Smaug’s weak spot so that the mighty bowman Bard was able to shoot down the dragon in its flight with his final arrow! For these remarkable services, the tiny hobbit had been promised one fourteenth share of the dragon’s stolen and hoarded treasure.

But now, what had seemed like a tremendous victory was turning into a calamity greater than the death and destruction dealt out by the dragon himself. This Battle of the Five Armies was the direct result of the news that Smaug’s golden hoard was no longer guarded by the monster, and Thorin, heir of the dwarf-kings of old, was unwilling to divide his treasure with other races, even when their claims seemed valid.

In J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth, dwarves were described as expert miners, smiths and craftsmen, digging, delving and building vast underground cities. Beneath the earth they sought out the natural treasuries of iron, copper, silver, gold and gems, which they fashioned into works of inexpressible beauty. With so much hard work invested in their treasures, it is easy to see why it filled Thorin’s heart with such hot desire, and made him willing to guard it with his own life, as well as the lives of his companions.

But later, at the side of Thorin’s death-bed, Bilbo would hear words of repentance from the lips of this proud King Under the Mountain. The hobbit cared little for the glitter of trinkets or the light of jewels...he had repeatedly longed only to return safely to his comfortable home under the Hill back in the Shire, with or without his fourteenth share of dragon-treasure. Thorin praised these simple desires in the end, confessing that if more people desired such things above the lust for gold and other riches, the world would be a merrier place.

Tolkien then put even more telling words into Thorin’s mouth as he was dying. He told Bilbo that he was about to go to sit among his ancestors and wait with them, “until the world is renewed.” What a poignant reminder that this world--Middle-earth or our own world--is not our final dwelling place. Nothing here that we value so highly is of permanent value; all will pass away. I might dig and dig for an entire lifetime, unearthing mineral riches that will satisfy even a dragon’s lust for treasure. It will vanish in the end. The Creator of heaven and earth, who spoke this universe into being, will just as easily speak it back into nothingness.

What will endure beyond the world’s renewal are the lives of the people around us. Contrary to the naturalistic fatalism of our times, physical death is not the end. None of us faces oblivion when he or she passes out of this world. Solomon said in the book of Ecclesiastes that God has placed eternity in the heart of man. We instinctively know that we are destined for an eternal, unending existence. Here, on this planet, we value things for their beauty, their splendor and craftsmanship, the passing pleasure they give...and, most of all, their “permanence.” But we know down deep that this permanence is not truly permanent, after all. You and I will outlast these things we cherish so highly. We will enter eternity someday and face our Creator. And he will either hail us as his beloved children, or judge and banish us as his bitter enemies.

Earthly treasures will not comfort us on that day. Fortunes we have amassed on planet earth will be left behind. Power, prestige, possessions and all our noble plans for the future will be stripped away. All that will matter is the treasure of knowing Jesus Christ.

How can I obtain this Person? This priceless treasure? Not by paying for it. Not by earning or deserving it. Jesus gives Himself to me freely as my Savior and King. I must merely reach out empty hands of faith and receive Him.

All during his adventurous travels, Bilbo Baggins kept longing for home. That is where his chief treasure lay. He eventually made it back there in one piece.

By God’s grace, may you and I do the same--and may your Treasure be waiting there to welcome you.