So here it is and we are having this same conversation again. Times change, people change, styles and jobs and families and politics and even where they lived, all change. Things change often, the circumstance of life and even peoples perspective change often. Still there are some things that never change. Jesus is still coming back soon. That won’t change until he gets here. The truth of the Bible never changes. People’s opinions about it may change but God’s truth never changes. Popular names change, types of entertainment change, and the list seems endless. People get older until they don’t. Some die young and never know the joys (?) of growing older.
It seems that times get harder, things cost more and good friends are harder to find. We complain about many things and long for the “Good Ol’ Days”. Back then we called it “These trying times”. Now those days seem like the golden years in comparison to what we are experiencing. We long for the glory days of our favorite sports teams, for the kindness of neighbors in the past and even for simple foods that seemed to taste so much better back then. We work hard, hoping to improve our lot in life and “make it big” compared to the folks next door. Everyone wants life to be better for their children. Yet we struggle because not everyone has our desires, our ambitions or our moral values.
Then we wonder. We wonder why it can’t be like it was when we were so busy trying to change things for the better. We marvel at how poorly things have turned out. It feels as if no one wants to listen to our cries to turn back to the ways of God. We have learned that His ways are best and yet so many turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the persistent wooing of the Holy Spirit. Our nation seems to be falling away from the principles and beliefs which made it a great place in the past. But the real question is “What makes you think things are supposed to get better? What makes you think the circumstances of life will ever get better? And maybe we should ask “What would make it better?”
Life began as a simple path in the garden and turned to hard labor. Someone made a change. Birth began with a thing called labor and quickly raced toward adolescence. Adolescence turned to teens, teens to youth, youths to young marrieds. Marriage takes two wonderfully independent, idealistic, selfish people in love and squeezes all that they are into one. In normal math we can prove that one plus one does not equal one. And then having entered into the process of becoming one (and it is a process) they begin to produce offspring, one at a time usually. Some find it within them to pour out twins or triplets or even more. Then one plus one equals three or more.
As a couple they make a living, live a life, and seek a future. At some point they probably wonder “Why is this so hard?” “Shouldn’t this life we are living in this great country we live in be getting easier?” So I would ask the same question to them. “What makes you think things are supposed to get better? What makes you think the circumstances of your life will ever get better? And maybe we should ask “What would make it better?” Maybe another way to put it is to ask “Who told you that?” Or “did you see that in a movie somewhere?” If it began as labor, and you labor throughout your life and in the end of your days you labor to remain for just a few more days, why should it ever get easier?
Dark days are ahead. Right has become wrong and wrong has become right. Those who used to believe the truths of holiness now deny God has any authority over them. Hard times are coming. All you have and all you have worked for all your life just becomes something someone else wants to take away so they may have it without the labor. Sickness takes your health, taxes take your wealth, and when you’re not paying attention some is taken by stealth. Evil declares your righteousness as wrong. Days without joy seem to grow long. And a constant barrage of sick minded ungodliness attempts to steal your song. So who did you think was going to make things better?
In our American political system we elect a new set of leaders every four years. We do not elect a savior. We elect sinful men to guide our laws and processes and trust they will do the good which is necessary and make our lives better. So let me ask “How’s that working out for you?” The Bible say we are to trust in the Lord with all our heart. Also that we should love the Lord our God with all our heart mind and soul. We are instructed to be dedicated to the right principles of truth and love. We have the laws of our nation founded on the precepts of God’s holy word. We expect that our ignorance and defiance of these principles will guide us into destruction. So why should we believe things are going to get better? And just what is better? Better would be obedience.
Better would be not defying and denying God. Better would be trusting all he gives you is all you require to live a joyful fulfilling life. Better would be helping others to see Him as their only necessity in life. Everything and everyone else is just periphery. Better is knowing that you do not need what is advertised, promoted, promised as fulfillment or guaranteed to make you happy. Better is knowing Jesus. Better is knowing His provision and promises fulfill every desire He has put within you. Better is being His without being trapped in the illusion of the worldly way which oppose Him.
So we lack better because we cling to, search after, and accept as truth that which is pathetically short of good, let alone better. We accept the lie and lie again to ourselves daily. A man who is caught in the miserable clutches of the sins of the flesh is not faithful. Nor is he free to choose. Like Esau he has surrendered his freedom for a few morsels of lust. Whether it be physical adultery or mental and visual, it is still the bondage from which he cannot free himself. And lest I be misunderstood, I am using Him generically for woman are easily guilty of the same sin. Which brings us back to the primary question, “What would make it better?” How is it that there is any hope, any light at the end of the dark tunnel, any profit to doing anything other than sighing deeply and giving in to the mastery of our lusts?
It is in Jesus. It is in forgiveness, total, complete, without reservation, purposed in eternity past, paid in full by His sovereign volition out of the bond of love. There has never been a moment in time in your life when this marvelous gift has not been available to you. He is not willing that any should perish and therefore offers it to those whom He already knows will not receive it. The very concept of a creator God who would choose to be born as one of His own creation for the purpose of making the gift available is beyond our understanding. The record that He did so extends beyond the pages of Holy Scripture. It is for His glory, for His Joy, for His ultimate purpose that He began with “Let there be Light”. He was and is and always will be the light. He lights our way.
How is it better? It is better because He is the only answer which works. It is better because His promise if fulfilled and you are with Him eternally. It is better because this light momentary affliction is not to be compared glories of being with Him. It is better because the alternative to accepting His gift is far worse than the affliction we now endure and either state is then permanent. How will it get better? When you pray “Lord Jesus, please forgive my sin and be the Lord of my life. Cause me to live for you now and for all eternity. I believe you are God and that you paid for my sin with your blood shed on the Cross of Calvary.“ Young or old or caught in-between, until then, there is no Better to be had.