Glorious Reality

             God is the most glorious, loving, wonderful, all-sufficient, all-satisfying, all-surpassing Good in the entire universe!!!!! Being perfect in all His ways—love, grace, justice, righteousness, mercy, faithfulness, etc.—He wants us to be with Him in His glory and enjoy Him forevermore! This amazing and all-fulfilling offer is set before us for the taking! We just have to love and cherish Him above all things. This means that we view Him for who He is, honor Him for what He's worth, glorify Him as He deserves, and love Him with all our hearts. This is the only fitting and proper response in our hearts and minds in order to be in sync with reality—the reality that we are sitting inside the realm of an eternal, all-powerful, all-wonderful, all-glorious, majestic and compassionate Creator who holds our lives in His hands by shear, sovereign grace.

How we have treated God

             There is now just one problem. "Since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse" (Romans 1:20). And although we have seen these truths in God's creation and have known the evidence of God that is written on our hearts—our conscience bearing witness—we neither glorified Him as God, nor did we give Him thanks. We have not viewed Him for who He is, nor honored Him for what He's worth, nor glorified Him as He deserves, nor loved Him with all our hearts, but we have, instead, done the exact opposite. We have viewed Him as blasphemously small, dishonored Him so greatly by valuing other things above Him, exchanged His glory and goodness for the unsatisfying created world, and loved money, leisure, possessions, and vain pleasure over and above the everlasting, all-satisfying, all-sufficient King of the universe. In His perfect justice, all of us have become as one who is unclean, offensive, and hostile to God—committing high and abominable sins against the Most High that openly defy His beautiful and holy nature (Galatians 5:22-23). We have performed indecent and detestable acts—having hearts and minds that are filled and darkened with pride, envy, and lust—all the while most of us have created a god in our own heads that suits our own worldly desires. So greatly we have profaned His infinite worth by beholding the grace and goodness of the Almighty Creator against the value of the created world and through our actions and desires our hearts have screamed, "THE CREATOR OF THE WORLD IS LESS VALUABLE! THE ONE WHO SITS ON THE THRONE, WHO IS HIGH AND LIFTED UP, IS LESS WORTH OUR TIME—LESS WORTH OUR ATTENTION—AND LESS WORTH OUR AFFECTION THAN THE IDOLS WE SO LOVE!"

             Houses, spouses, sex, children, food, careers, wealth, success, sports, television, movies, toys, furniture, ease, leisure, comforts, and the like have become the objects of our affection instead of God. If you prefer any of these things above the all-satisfying, all-sufficient Creator of the universe—for whom we were made and in whom is our only source of lasting fulfillment and happiness—then you have exchanged the surpassing greatness of the immortal God for idols.

We have completely separated ourselves from God

             So vast and insurmountable of a division has been placed between us and our glorious Creator that we stand here today as complete outcasts. How could we dare to show our faces before such infinite worth and greatness after having so horribly offended Him and disregarded His exceeding goodness? The shame we would feel after standing in His presence for just a moment in light of how we have treated Him would be unbearable. And what is more, this separation has been put in place by our own hands, our own choices, and our own desires. All hope is lost...darkness is surrounding us...the goodness of God is fading...the gap between us and He is widening...hell is approaching...doom and destruction are looming over us...

The Great News!

             But wait! What's this!? Someone is coming!!! He has salvation! He has made a way! A King from another realm has come!!! He is perfect in all his ways! He is the promised one who has been sent down to us by the Gracious Father! He is the Son of God!...the Savior of the world!...the Lord Jesus Christ!!! And through his long descent from the highest position in the heavenly realms to the lowest of places in this terrible, evil, pain-filled world, he has become for us a pathway across the great spiritual chasm that separates us from our Maker. Through persecution, insult, hardships, suffering, rejection, temptation, floggings, mocking, beatings, crucifixion, and death—having the weight of the sin of the world pressed down upon him, and the full wrath of the Father poured out upon him, he has become an atoning sacrifice to God on our behalf! The punishment that we deserved was placed on him—the perfect, sinless, Savior, and King, who through all his glory, goodness, worth, and purity, he is able to take away the guilt and sins that we have so horribly offended God with—and so through him alone a way has been made that brings us back into a right and all-satisfying relationship with the Father, revealed and illuminated to our darkened hearts by the Holy Spirit.

             By pouring out His fierce wrath upon His own glorious, precious, and sinless Son, God's perfect justice has been fulfilled! And so the insurmountable divide that exists between us and the Everlasting Father has been removed through our Lord Jesus Christ, and his surpassingly glorious work on the cross! He brings us to God! So, turn from your sins and embrace him and love him with all your heart and with all your soul as your highest and greatest treasure, and he will grant you eternal life!!! He is our only hope.