Contents:
We cannot easily accept loss. We don't like it and we don't want it. We wish it be otherwise. We seek to order life in a manner those accords with our desires and preferences. But that is not how life works. Impermanence, and thus loss, is built into all life -- everything that is born will die, all relationships will end in separation, everything that is accumulated will in time be lost, and name and fame will be gone as well.
Then, the cycle of human life reverses itself, continuing as the perpetual ebb of creation and destruction, year-to-year, moment to moment, gain alternating with loss.
If we can understand and fully accept life, as it actually is, impermanent and ever changing, we will still experience loss. However, we will not be adding an extra layer of pain and suffering by resisting it. We will not be fighting loss.
We will not be struggling with it. We will not oppose the natural movement of life. We will neither push it away, nor suppress it. What's required is an acknowledgement and surrender to the reality of the here and now, even if that is the painful reality of loss. We must surrender the illusion that we can control life and avoid or minimize loss and distress. We must surrender the willful belief that life should proceed according to our desires and wants. And, we must surrender the seductive illusion that life and its circumstances are unchanging.
Letting go of our resistance is not a punishment. It's a wise act of courage that allows an easier passage through loss and openness to possibilities as yet unknown. That growth in understanding can allow us to experience loss without anxiety, fear, or misconceptions. But, if accepted as life's momentary movement, we can live through loss with far less suffering.
You might be working, house cleaning, playing ball, swimming at the lake, maybe resting, or fishing. However, God has brought you today.
It was not something that you planned several weeks ago. I believe that God has a purpose in your reading this article. Again, it is no accident that we happened to be here today.
Just maybe you are lost on the inside, actually dead in your spirit. God has brought you to hear that God has a special plan for your life. God has brought you here because He has a plan for your life. Jeremiah recorded the Word of God: God has a good plan and purpose for each of our lives no matter where we have been or what we have done and He is well able to fulfill that plan if we are willing to turn our lives over to Him as Lord.
You may think and feel like your life is a total loss! When there is a great loss , it is often a time that people begin to search for meaning in life. The Bible is a great place to begin to search. However, when we come to the Bible, we first discover some bad news.
We have all traveled down the road that promised us fame, pleasure, and fortune, but found it to be nothing more than a empty, dead end, street. This means that no one, no matter who they are or what title they carry has lived a perfectly righteous life. You may be a child, mother, father, pastor, minister, or priest, but you have sinned.
We have all shot our arrows at the target of doing what is right, but our arrows have fallen short. We have all disobeyed the laws of God. We may not have physically murdered anyone, but we have wished that someone didn't exist. Jesus said, it is what is in the heart that counts. This is pointing a death down deep inside of us. It is a spiritual death.
It is a death that everyone of us has experienced when we came to know the difference between right and wrong and chose to do wrong. If we have disobeyed God just one time we have broken His Law. This simply means that God wants to have a relationship with us, but in order that to take place, Jesus had to take the penalty for all our sins: When Jesus died and shed his blood on the cross, he took all of our sins upon himself and even became sin for us that we might receive his righteousness.
He died a very cruel death, his body with put into the grave, then he spent three days in Hades what we would call hell , before he arose having victory over the powers of darkness. I am the way, the truth, and the life: We can repent of every sin that we have ever sinned and belong to the best church in town, but it will not save us.
Jesus is the only way to the Father in Heaven. There is life only in Jesus. The Bible says that we are saved solely by God's grace. Grace is God's unmerited, unearned favor. We can go to church, help the poor, pray, be baptized, and live a pretty good life, but Jesus is the only way to Heaven.
Doing good works saves no one! The Bible says that everything right thing that we might do to save ourselves is nothing more than very dirty underclothing to God. It means to give your life to Jesus as your King, your Boss, your Owner. When I was nine years old, I simply gave my life to Jesus that was all that I knew to do.
The best illustration that I know of is that about 14 years ago, I was diagnosed with colon cancer. It had a death penalty attached to it. I grew up on a farm and learned to fix things, but here was something that I could not fix. I had to sign a consent form before the surgeon would operate. In essence, I had to put my life into the hands of a surgeon to remove the cancer that I might live. There is a cancer called sin, it carries a death penalty with it. We can't fix the problem ourselves, but there is a great physician whose name is Jesus.
If we will give our life to him letting him become our LORD, he will operate on us and give us a new life. Dear God, I recognize that I have disobeyed you and understand that is called sin. I also understand that the penalty for sin is death on the inside. However, I believe that your Son, Jesus, came to the earth, was born of the virgin, Mary, and live a perfectly righteous life.
He then suffered and died on the cross taking the full penalty all my sin upon himself. He was buried, spent three days in Hades, and arose the third day, that he might offer eternal life in Heaven to me. Therefore, I chose today to give my life to you Jesus as my Lord and my Saviour and ask that by your Spirit, that you come and live inside of me and make me a new person on the inside.
If this was the first time that you prayed and gave your life to Jesus as your Lord, I am going to ask you to do something bold by the ability that God will give you. As soon as you can, go to someone and boldly tell them that you prayed and gave your life to Jesus. If you will do this you will encourage and comfort someone else.
The Holy Spirit does not leave us as orphans. He will teach us what we need to know and even reminds us of what God has already taught us. The Holy Spirit will show us more of what Jesus has done for us. All things that the Father hath are mine: God worked all the loss the life of Naomi together for good, He did it with Job Job We all experience the suffering of loss: The loss may the loss of someone we love or care about, through a break up, divorce, death, or simply moving away.