Tragic Blindness

"For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matthew 16:26)

This is my position: let the scientist stay in his field and I will stay in mine. I am as glad and thankful as anyone for the benefits of research, and I hope scientists will soon find the cure for heart disease, for I have lost many good friends from sudden heart attacks.

But listen to me now about the difference in meaning between the short-term matters of our physical beings and the eternal relationships between the believer and his God.

If you save a person from diphtheria when he is a baby, or save him in his teens from smallpox, or save him in his fifties from a heart attack, what have you done?

If that man lives to be ninety and still is without God and does not know why he was born, you have simply perpetuated the life of a mud turtle. That man who has never found God and has never been born again is like a turtle, with two legs instead of four and no shell and no tail, because he still does not know what life has been all about.

Thank You, Heavenly Father, that You opened my eyes to see the purpose for my existence and the importance of focusing foremost on the things of eternity. May I be faithful to share the message of salvation today with others who are yet in blindness. Amen

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The Bottom Line

"So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east end of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life" (Genesis 3:24)

Yes, worship of the loving God is man's whole reason for existence. That is why we are born and that is why we are born again from above. That is why we were created and that is why we have been recreated. That is why there was a genesis at the beginning, and that is why there is a re-genesis, called regeneration.

That is also why there is a church. The Christian church exists to worship God first of all. Everything else must come second or third or fourth or fifth.

Sad, sad indeed, are the cries of so many today who have never discovered why they were born. It brings to mind the poet Milton's description of the pathetic lostness and loneliness of our first parents. Driven from the garden, he says, "they took hand in hand and through the valley made their solitary way."

Lord, use me today to point someone to the way of the wilderness. Sad, sad, indeed is the fact that so many of my own acquaintances may not yet know why they were born. Speak through me today. Amen

~A. W. Tozer~