Just Between You, Me, & God 2/5/2012

We are a country of entitlements. We see it everywhere. You deserve a break today, it’s your money, use it when you want it, you deserve the very best, another credit card because you deserve it. I even saw a bag from a donut shop the other day that said “You deserve a donut”. Now I like donuts, but I don’t know that I deserve one. Here’s one that you don’t hear that often, “You deserve Hell!” I think I just heard a lot of disconnects. The fact is that when we take a real look at our lives that’s exactly what we deserve. In Romans 3:10 Paul reminds us from the Old Testament writings, “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” Although we like to put ourselves on the same footing as God, we are not even close. He is all mighty and purely righteous. He cannot bare sin nor to be in it’s presence which puts us in only one place after we die and that’s Hell, removed from God. We also know that God is a loving God and that he did not create us in order to abandon us on our own forever. You know what’s coming next, John 3:16 but I’m going to give you a little more to chew on than just that. Read all the way through verse 21. Jesus said, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because He has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” Like the Febreze commercial, we live our lives blindfolded from what is really around us, living a lie that we are in a better place. Take off your blindfold and embrace the cleansing light of Jesus Christ and then carry your candle into the world so that others may see. God bless, Pastor Dean Hanssen

Pastor Dean Hanssen is the Ministries & Outreach Pastor at LHF.