1-3-2022<\/p>\n
I have imagined that if God composed an employment search, it might read “Wanted: Nobody.”<\/p>\n
Wait… what a way to start the new year. An ambiguous phrase. God doesn’t want Nobody (what another way to start the new year — ambiguous grammar). Properly stated, of course, God wants everybody<\/em>.<\/p>\n He created us all, so it is obvious that He wants us all… to be saved, to commune with Him, to find joy, to experience salvation, to be free from the bondage of sin. Why else create us? He grants us free will… but we nevertheless rebel… and yet He offers us a way to redemption.<\/p>\n He loves us. So much that He allowed His incarnate Son to assume our sins unto Himself and pay the penalties we deserve.<\/p>\n Well, that is the Gospel message. It is His desire that not one should perish; “no, not one.” That the Creator of the Universe should care about you and me is astonishing. Yet astonishingly true. A New Year’s resolution for all of us (any year!) might be to contemplate, meditate, and appreciate that humbling but joyful truth.<\/p>\n So in His own way, thank God (um, literally) He doesn’t need Nobody — He is God, so can do as He pleases. (In fact, most of the people in Bible accounts are “nobodies,” not the powerful or celebrities, whom He chose to do His work. That can be another message.)<\/p>\n But He tells us that as much as we need Him in our lives… He<\/em> needs us. He needs<\/em> us. He needs us<\/em>! Astonishing.\u00a0Why else would He have created the heavens and the earth — and us? To watch us suffer and die? To cry and wander helpless? To curse each other and curse Him?<\/p>\n He desired instead to commune with us — to fellowship, in prayer and by service. To be an ever-present help in times of trouble. To receive the praise and glory that is due Him, and which will be our fondest desire for eternity. (I can’t wait to join THAT party!)<\/p>\n Yes. Shame on me. What I really mean is that, in God’s job search (so to speak) He wants EVERYBODY<\/em>. Nobody is too lowly or too high. Nobody has messed up so much as to be out of God’s loving reach. Nobody is too dirty who cannot be cleansed and given a robe of pure white.<\/p>\n And, astonishingly, nobody is beyond Jesus’s sacrifice that serves to wash away all of our sins in God’s eyes. Best of all — you don’t need to take a bath in order to be washed by the shower of Christ’s work on the Cross.<\/p>\n Salvation is a come-as-you-are party!<\/p>\n