While any single community in this world still has:
broken families & failing marriages,
drug/alcohol dependence & abuse,
sex-trade (including 'clubs' or porn),
child abuse & neglect,
people who die daily for lack of basic necessities
while others live in wasteful luxury
or people who feel so utterly lost or depraved
as to take the life of themselves or others
(especially the most defenseless in the womb) ...
there is still a demand for one more fellowship of believers
(the Church) committed to bringing the good news of Jesus Christ
and teaching others to be disciples who follow His Word.
Don't miss the point. These are all just symptoms of a disease called depravity.
It is known by other names: fallenness, sin, indifference, idolatry, corruption, immorality, wickedness, vice, injustice, perversion, evil, etc... But just like physically, treating the symptoms will not provide a cure.
There is no political, social, cultural, or normative means to permanently 'solve' these problems. If there were - don't you think we'd have beaten them by now. Can a broken failed system produce an answer? Better yet, can a group of broken failed people produce a perfect system? This is a spiritual disease that requires a spiritual treatment. It is a change that comes from outside us and changes ... restores... the hearts and minds of individuals.
Lives and communities can be restored through the application of the Gospel.
One life, one family, one fellowship of believers, one community at time.
Here is the Gospel:
There is nothing you or I can do to overcome the wickedness of our hearts & minds in their desire toward evil. We are sinners who will each stand before a Holy and Righteous God one day to give account of our lives. Some will still claim to be good / moral / upstanding people - but I ask you, compared to what? Compared to some mass-murderer you think you have a pretty good shot, but compared to God you're doomed to suffer judgement - He is the standard, not the one you would chose. We know this in our heart, but we hide from it and make excuses for our condition and behaviour.
Even as we are deserving of Judgment, even as we are at war with God, even as we have turned our backs and walked away... He comes to us.
He came personally and physically - God the Son was born as a man called Jesus known also as the Christ (or annointed one) some 2000 years ago in a backwater town called Bethlehem in Judah. He lived a life you and I can never live - perfect in every way - conforming to his expectation of us- partly as an example, but mainly as a means. Because of His claim to be God, the religious leaders of His day had him condemned to death by the corrupt civil authorities. So this blameless man who was God in the flesh was killed by Crucifixion. They nailed his hands & his feet to a cross of wood and hung him up in the air until he was near death from suffocation. Then they pierced his side with a spear to finish him off.
In His death he became a means of salvation and restoration to His people. Having lived that perfect life and sacrificed Himself on the Cross for all our sins, God no longer sees the sin of His people... but Him. But wait --- they killed Him... yes they did. He died and he was buried in a tomb, but sin-death-and the utter destruction don't stop Jesus - the power of God's Spirit resurrected Him and He appeared to many of the people that knew Him before (500+). They even witnessed Him rise into Heaven. So now He is restored to His place in Glory from where He came. He also promised that all who believe in Him as God the Son and the provider of salvation & restoration will be saved from their sinfulness and restored into fellowship with Him.
He comes even now as God the Spirit to some who read this. He is working in your heart to help you hear and believe this message. You've heard this story before, but you've struggled with it emotionally, intellectually, or really in truth because your mind & heart were clouded by sin. Respond to the Lord as He calls to you, stop living this life in the same way the world teaches... you see what that produces don't you? He is calling each of us to a relationship with Him through faith in Christ alone. He forgives. He heals. He restores. He is love like we wish we knew love. He is the treatment and will ultimately be the cure for our sick hearts.
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