Thought for Today
Saturday, June 09 2007 @ 10:06 AM PDT
It has been said that the “most needy, the most sinful, the most despised, may find access to the Father.” What goes through your mind as you read these words? If you grew up with any sort of religious background, you may be sensing some strong emotion. Many of us from church-going childhoods can identify with a feeling of never quite making the grade – even if you ended up graduating at the top of your class, doing the mission trip and becoming a pastor. Thoughts like, “I’m not good enough, I need to do thus and so in order to get approval” are not uncommon. If you didn’t have any religious instruction, you probably can still relate – just transfer this scenario into a parent/child context.
It is easy to turn away from our own shortcomings and zero in on popular celebrity icons like Britney Spears or Paris Hilton and say they have unmanageable lifestyles but are we willing to look at ourselves and admit the same? Or are you different? Am I different? Do we “have it made” so to speak?
When God became the man, Jesus Christ, He quickly retreated to the desert for solitude and communion with His Father for He knew that in time, the assaults of this world would accelerate. He did not seek temptation but it found Him in the form of Satan who pounced immediately. Christ knew the only way He could impart love and truth was by connecting with love and truth. “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” James 4:8. We can announce boldly like Ezra, “I felt encouraged because the gracious hand of the Lord my God was on me” Ezra 7:28
There are moments in our busy lives when we are alone with our thoughts, sifting through what we’ve done and what we’ve not done. Some of us stuff those thoughts immediately for they are too painful and that is understandable for God did not create us to be in pain, He created us to live a full life of joy and purpose. If you think your neediness or sins prevent you from accessing God, think of the Samaritan who met her Messiah at the well. Christ sat with her, possibly under the shade of an olive tree, and revealed He knew everything she’d ever done in open and behind closed doors. More than that, He showed her He was her friend and had not come to judge her but to love her and if she was willing, to heal her from all the damage done, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” John 4:13.
If this is the kind of God who you’d like to be friends with, then proclaim it in your heart for the Master Physician has the skill, compassion and love all in perfect sync – not to just make us better but to make us whole.
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