How Mark came to Experience God
Mark grew up rejecting the hypocrisy of the church and became an atheist. But then God revealed Himself to Mark...

The Meaning of Life
God wants people to experience life to the fullest (the way He designed it to be lived) and He wants people to live forever.
How you can know God
God does not want to be impersonal and distant, He wants to be known personally. That's why He came into the world as a man, so we could know Him.



So what does God intend to do about selfishness?

People often say that they don't believe in God because of all the bad things that happen to people. But as we have just noted, much of the suffering in the world is caused by people, not God. In fact, God promises in the bible that if people will choose to live by his commands to love each other, He will protect those people from natural disasters and disease. Even more than that, he will bring prosperity and peace to a people who live this way. We are not experiencing this protection in our country now because we as a nation are breaking many of Gods commands. Read it for yourself in Deuteronomy 28.

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6:23

God said from the beginning that death and destruction would be the result of selfishness and not following his commands to love others. God, in an expression of tough love, cut short selfish behavior in people by limiting peoples life spans to only a handful of decades. Think about this, what would it be like to live forever in a world like we live in now? People hurting and abusing each other. Would it be good to allow destructive behavior to go on forever? Sometimes the only way to cure cancer is to cut it out with painful surgery.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Romans 3:23

We have all been selfish. We have all broken Gods command to love others. So everyone is facing Gods death sentence for breaking the law of love. Its just a matter of time before disease, murder, or accident delivers the sentence.

This selfish behavior has done more than make a mess of the world, cause tremendous suffering, and countless broken relationships and lives. It has also separated us from God. Because we are selfish and choose to break Gods commands to love others, we are separated from God.

Have you ever wondered why you have never felt or known Gods presence? It is because there is a wall between you and God because of sin (selfishness). Have you ever really hurt someone or been really hurt by someone? What is the effect on the relationship? You pull away from that person and don't even want to be around them. In a similar way, when we violate Gods commands and hurt others, God separates Himself from people until something happens to restore that relationship. That is why God does not even seem to exist for many people.

But your sins have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you.
Isaiah 59:2

But there is a way to escape death and reconnect with God.

 

Copyright 2006, Colebank.communications. All rights reserved.