There is an Answer...

Let not your heart be troubled, believe in God, believe also in Me. John 14:1   

And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.  Matt. 28:20

Oh what a time to be alive. I see a headline in the Tribune Review online today. The rate of suicide in Pennsylvania has gone up by 34%.http://triblive.com/state/pennsylvania/13739159-74/suicides-increase-by-more-than-third-over-17-year-period-in-pennsylvania  Also today, I open to another a major news story online, a famous chef has followed a famous fashion designer in ending his life. These two in just the last week. Suicide seemed to be their only answer...but was it really the answer? Where did they go, once their heart beat for that final time? Did they find relief, or just another nightmare, one without an end?

Many people are running out of other options to the hopelessness and despair that they feel. Where is their relief? It is not in a bottle, it is not in a pill, it is not in food, it is not in money, it is not fulfilling the greatest dream of one's life. Those people tried those things, and they did not work. Still, deep down inside the emptiness remained and options ran out.

 Most of my generation would agree that the Beatles Let it Be is a powerful song. Seems perfect for this age we live in, They sang that there would be an answer.  But as much sway as that song held over me when it came on the radio, I found myself changing the words slightly as I sang along. Instead, I sang to myself, "JESUS is the answer..."

Maybe that sounds too simplistic to most who read this? But I would be in the same boat with the fashion designer without my Rock, my Anchor, my answer in a world that is running out of answers, that actually ran out of them ages ago.

Jesus is the answer. Just try Him, really. Take Him at His word. He will not make all of your problems disappear. In fact, He promised our lives would be full of problems on this side of eternity.

"What's the use in trusting Him if I will still have problems?" I can hear someone thinking that even as I write the words. No, the hard things do not stop when we believe in Christ. In many ways, our human life gets harder because Jesus is not welcome on this planet. His enemy has temporary control. Temporary, remember that.

But the biggest problem of your life will be solved by your believing in Jesus. Now, instead of drifting in a world of uncertainty, you can be assured of an eternal home with the One who created you. You will not face separation from Him at the end of your time here. Your problems can be the very things God uses to bring you closer and closer in trusting Him, in advancing your faith. Give Him a chance, I beg you.

In a devotional I love, None but the Hungry Heart, by Miles Stanford, for the day of June 5, I read these words:

"Not a hair of the child of God can fall without God's permission. Satan is but the unintentional instrument to accomplish God's will; he can do no more than he is allowed to do..."

If this were not true, how could any of us keep on trusting God in the light of everything we see around us? Last night I was lured into feeling sorry for myself for certain hardships I face in my life. Then it hit me, God allowed them. He knew beforehand the tragedies I would face. All I need do is to believe that He really does have this, He will bring good. And all the stirred up anger and frustration just melted away.

I now think of another song. This time, it is a Christian hymn, Only Trust Him by John Stockton. How simple the chorus is. So simple that the proud could pass it right by. But if any child of His will just believe, there is peace. Peace this world cannot ever give.

Only trust Him, only trust Him, only trust Him now. He will save you, He will save you, He will save you now.

I can let my heart be troubled by all I see and hear around me. Or I can trust the One who is unseen, and have peace in the storm. Jesus told us to do it, so we really can choose to not let our hearts be troubled. I give Him my problems, and He gives me peace, what an exchange. You can have it too.

Then Peter began to speak: Now I really understand that God does not show favoritism, but in every nation the person who fears Him and does righteousness (ie, believe in Him, my comment) is acceptable to Him. He sent the message to the Israelites, proclaiming the good news of peace through Jesus Christ-- He is Lord of all.  Acts 10: 34-37 

Where's the Peace?

2 Cor 2:14 But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him v.15 For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing,everywhere. v.16 to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?

"And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be upon you. Amen." Romans 16: 20

One day soon, this crushing will be a reality.

Peace...the world clamors for it. But without knowing the God of Peace they cannot find it.

"For when they say, Peace and safety! then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape." I Thessalonians 5: 3

Isaiah 2:3 Many people shall come and say, "Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, To the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, And we shall walk in His paths." For out of Zion shall go forth the law, And the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. Isaiah 2: 4 He shall judge between the nations, And rebuke many people; They shall beat their swords into plowshares, And their spears into pruning hooks; Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, Neither shall they learn war anymore.

When will this happen? We can never effect this "peace on earth" by ourselves! Can people suddenly have a change of heart on their own and the whole world will suddenly become good on its own? Not a chance! No, this will only be when the Messiah returns and is with us once again! All men will have to make their choice as to whose side they are on: with Christ or with the Devil and his angels. There is NO middle ground.

This weekend I attended a cultural event honoring a famous photographer, born in our local area, who certainly beheld some of the world's most tragic moments in the 21st century. He brought them to our attention through his famous work. He captured them with a click,and some of these shots even changed history. Yet at the end of his life he despaired at all of the destructions he had witnessed and possibly didn't have personal faith that Someone had come into human history, Someone who cared about every detail of these tragedies, every single loss. That This Man was the solution to them. He was the One who had borne every sorrow, every grief. (See Isaiah 53.) Faith in His person mitigates the sharp blows of life on this tragic spinning ball we call "Earth." For believers, we are only pilgrims passing through, the Earth is not our Mother, but God is our Father and Jesus is our Brother and Best Friend.

The Beatles sang, "There will be an answer" in Let it Be.I like to sing to myself, "Jesus is the answer." You see, no matter what the problem is, the answer was solved at the cross of Christ. Tetelestai! That does not minimalize in any way the suffering or tragedies of man down throughout the ages. But a Perfect God has provided a Perfect Solution to any one who is willing to "Look Up." The problem is never with God but always with man and his unbelief. That is the only sin that will keep one out of heaven.

John 8:24: "Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins."

When we behold human injustices, simply asking God why, while acknowledging that He has all knowledge and we do not, (instead of shaking our fists angrily at Him) can be the first step in getting to know this Person who would be so kind as to bear our sins on a tree of wood.

In knowing Him as our Saviour, He gives us Peace.Ephesians 2: 14-18 tells us:

For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.