STAND AMAZED

We live in an age when there is a religious philosophy on every corner.  The true and false mingle together sometimes, and the journey gets very foggy.  This is the age of spirituality.  Religious ideologies abound.  Palm readers and Fortunetellers have set up shop in about every city. The religion of Self-help abounds and the religion of materialism, which calls people to more and more possessions and greater and greater success, permeates the horizon. 

When Jesus comes along and says that he is “the Way and the Truth and the Life” (John 14:6), He pushes the envelop a little too far for some.  That's why people will take Jesus to a certain point, and no further.  When He starts talking about sin and brokenness and about Him dying and being raised from the dead that, pretty much, ends the conversation for a lot of folks.

We human types don't want to talk about sin and brokenness.  We don't want to talk about the pain we carry and the emptiness, which haunts us so much, that we live out our lives medicated with some "pain-killer" of choice. We drive our cars and talk on our cell phones and watch our TV's and embrace our entertainment and sip our drink of choice, caught up in a world of busyness and activity and distraction, knowing that things are not working in our lives but ignoring the reality of it.

Then, Jesus shows up, and by His simply being here, we see the truth about ourselves, we see the dead ends, and we see the possibilities of new beginnings.  Suddenly, something new is on the horizon, and we know, we know, love is covering our lives, and that the future can be different than the past.  Amazing Grace fills us up and we stand amazed at how good God is.