Lost and Found
"What is wrong with this world?"
It's been the million dollar question for centuries. Mom asks it over the evening news. Aristotle asked it in the Enlightenment cafes. Everyone from the lowest slave to the mightiest king has wondered... how did we end up like this?
And believe me, we've tried to answer. Science, philosophy, religion, psychology, sociology, music, literature... there is no shortage of answers to the question. But which one is the answer?
In truth, we don't really want to know what's wrong with us, for the same reason calling someone a sinner is offensive and admitting your wrong is so difficult. No, the real question, the billion dollar question, if you will, is how do we fix it?
We don't want to know how we got to wrong; we want to know how to get back to right.
Over the centuries, countless religions have claimed to have the solution to our never-ending problems. We've tried everything: meditation, intense study, endless sacrifice, begging and pleading, reasoning, self-help. The list goes on until we seem simply pathetic in our desperation.
Thus was the plight of the Israelite nation. It wasn't from lack of trying that they were not good. They placed laws on top of laws to try to keep themselves holy. They studied and prayed, sacrificed and purified for years on end. And yet, despite their desperation to be good, they continually prostituted themselves to evil.
They wanted to be good enough for God, but they couldn't be. We want to be good enough for God, but we can't be.
Does this mean that we will be forever separated from the One we were created for? Thankfully, this is not the case.
Religion after religion had tried to instruct man on how to find God. Then, Jesus came with a game-changing claim: I am God and I have found you.
It was a claim He would die for. It was a claim He would rise from the dead for.
The world had it's answer. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. We once were lost, but now we're found.
It's been the million dollar question for centuries. Mom asks it over the evening news. Aristotle asked it in the Enlightenment cafes. Everyone from the lowest slave to the mightiest king has wondered... how did we end up like this?
And believe me, we've tried to answer. Science, philosophy, religion, psychology, sociology, music, literature... there is no shortage of answers to the question. But which one is the answer?
In truth, we don't really want to know what's wrong with us, for the same reason calling someone a sinner is offensive and admitting your wrong is so difficult. No, the real question, the billion dollar question, if you will, is how do we fix it?
We don't want to know how we got to wrong; we want to know how to get back to right.
Over the centuries, countless religions have claimed to have the solution to our never-ending problems. We've tried everything: meditation, intense study, endless sacrifice, begging and pleading, reasoning, self-help. The list goes on until we seem simply pathetic in our desperation.
Thus was the plight of the Israelite nation. It wasn't from lack of trying that they were not good. They placed laws on top of laws to try to keep themselves holy. They studied and prayed, sacrificed and purified for years on end. And yet, despite their desperation to be good, they continually prostituted themselves to evil.
They wanted to be good enough for God, but they couldn't be. We want to be good enough for God, but we can't be.
Does this mean that we will be forever separated from the One we were created for? Thankfully, this is not the case.
Religion after religion had tried to instruct man on how to find God. Then, Jesus came with a game-changing claim: I am God and I have found you.
It was a claim He would die for. It was a claim He would rise from the dead for.
The world had it's answer. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. We once were lost, but now we're found.
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