The Sunday Snippet – Winning the Battle, but Losing the War

I’m reading and working through a challenging book called, The Long Way Home: The Powerful 4-Step Plan for Adult Children of Divorce. * I’ll write a full review of this promising book when I finish, but in it, author M. Gary Neuman, includes a list of issues that are common to adults with divorced parents.

As I draw closer to finishing this book, it looks like it will be a powerful healing tool in the arsenal I offer adults whose parents are divorced. But in this process I was reminded of something Jesus said, What good is it if you gain the whole world, but lose your soul? The Amplified Bible says it like this, “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life [his blessed life in the kingdom of God]? Or what would a man give as an exchange for his [blessed] life [in the kingdom of God]?” **

In our context, clearly the goal of this ministry is to introduce tools to adults with divorced parents that can help them have healthy relationships and marriages, but what if that goal is achieved and at the end of this life you didn’t know that there was something far more important to God?

The Issue Behind The Issues

As we take the steps to deal with life issues as related to our parent’s divorce and our other relationships, virtually every problem we’ll deal with is or was caused by sin. Sins that will need to be forgiven—sin against us, sin against others, sins that we’ve done in the family arena. But in order to truly forgive others we have to be forgiven ourselves.

God says that I have messed up—sinned, and I’m not alone. Everyone has. Unfortunately God’s punishment for that is Hell.  Pretty simple system. The only way to be in heaven with God, who is perfect, is to be perfect like He is. Now this is not the system I would have set up, but I didn’t create the world. God did. But God wasn’t content with the results of that system either. So right where time splits between BC and AD or BCE and CE we see God’s solution. Find a person who has never sinned to take the punishment for everyone else.

Impossible Task Completed.

Do you know any people who don’t sin? Don’t mess up? Me either. Neither does God. The Bible says that there isn’t a single person who hasn’t messed up somehow. So where does one find a sinless person?  God found and sent that person whose name was Jesus—His only Son. God loved you so much that He sent Jesus here to take the punishment that should have sent you and I to Hell. Every bad thing we’ve done or will do Jesus took the punishment for.  God is serious about punishing sin and that will never change. But He is serious about forgiveness too. Are you?

The Greatest Gift

You’ve probably heard that Jesus loves you, but the whole truth is, He loves you enough that he has offered to shield you from the punishment God pours out on all people who sin. The question is will you accept His great sacrifice. I want you to heal from the scars—some ongoing that you’ve received from your parent’s divorce. But I so much more want you to have life that extends beyond the 60, 70, or 80+ years we have here. If you do not know Jesus Christ as your savior, please click here to learn more about what He’s done for you and how He can change you life here and after you have died.

This is one of my all time favorite pictures. *** For me it sums up salvation. Without Jesus, we are lost forever—drowned in a sea of sin. It also portrays how I’ve felt many times as I’ve worked through The Long Way Home book, or even how I’ve felt after a holiday where I’ve had to deal with parents and stepparents.  Conversely, with Jesus we are saved from the penalty of our sins forever and through His perfection, we are able to be with God in Heaven instead of Hell without Him.  Again if you do not know that Jesus Christ is your Savior, please click here so that you can know.  Let’s all win the battles and the war!

* The Long Way Home, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., [Hoboken, NJ] 138-139 ** Matthew 16:26. http://www.biblegateway.com *** Rescued, Darrin Hoover