Christmas Eve - Another booster evening

 Hello.  I'm not sure who will even find this, or when, but God has imposed on me that its important that I write this tonight.  This is another night where I'm struggling to sleep for a prolonged period of time.  I do have a medicine that is pretty reliable in helping, but I don't like being too dependent on it, so I'm being stubborn and not taking it.  A few minutes ago, before my last attempt to fall asleep, but after a further previous attempt to fall asleep, I decided to watch this weekend's sermon from Life.Church.  

As their sermons often do when I tend to watch them, this one left a mark on me.  Now, I know "left a mark" is often used with negative connotations, but right now this isn't really that, but those words, portraying a lasting effect, is what I find most appropriate in this moment.  You see, Life.Church has been in a series called Christmas at the Movies.  Themed after their popular summer sermon series, that they often repeat, the series involves taking a popular movie and pulling some truth out of it to make a point.  They generally show several longer clips of scenes from the movie of the service and interject with some added context.

The movie tonight was Its a Wonderful Life.  The movie features a man who seemingly does great service for everyone he meets, but doesn't really realize how much of an impact he is making. One day, everything goes horribly wrong, and he considers taking his life.  Of course I relate to this because of my struggle with depression, anxiety, and frequent suicidality.  Through a bit of comedy an angel is called upon to help him out of his emotional distress and the angel does succeed.  

One thing that pastor Craig made very clear is the impact of taking one's own life.  But before I get into that in a bit more detail, lets look at the scope of one's life.  There is a common sermon illustration used to understand your common life as contrasted with your eternal life.  This illustration uses a rope, with a very small section marked with a different pattern or color.  This tiny section represents your common life, where you are now, and the majority of the length of rope is your eternal life.  Looping back to pastor Craig, he says that one shouldn't let temporary distress destroy the entirety of one's life.  Putting this into the context of our rope analogy, no matter how much time you spend in distress, you will still have profoundly more time outside of it if you are a true Christian.  Your suffering need only last a little while until the rejoicing of eternity can begin.

Presently, I've been struggling with my symptoms for over five years and medication has done little to help.  I want to reiterate that tonight's sermon has left a mark.  Beyond the aforementioned reason for this statement, I also use it because I realize that in this moment God has redeemed victory over my symptoms, but I still realize that this is just one battle.  I must continue to ask God to help me again and again as I struggle.  God is desirous to help you as well.  Will you invite Him into your life?  There is a cost, but in this moment I firmly believe that the cost is well worth it.  

In case you don't know the process for this, its pretty simple.  Mankind sinned shortly after we were created.  This sin marked us eternally and separated us from God.  Sin really just means something that is not pure, not "holy" to use a churchy word.  I'm sure if you reflect on your life long enough, you will find at least one thing that you've done which you probably regret.  It could be as "simple" as a "white" lie, or as "major" as wronging another person more directly.  To God, all sin is simply sin.  There is no scale.  Anything thrown into a solution makes the original item impure.  

God, in His infinite love, became Himself a human, but his entire life managed to not commit a single sin. God's human form, Christ Jesus, lived a life often filled with torment and conflict and His common life ultimately ended in Him dying on a cross as a sacrifice so that we could be redeemed back to purity toward God.  With this God "knocks" at the door of our heart and asks to be invited in.  Now, you may recall I mentioned a "cost" to this.   That cost is simply the effort it takes to actively remind yourself of this purification and to invite God into every part of your life.  Not just on a surface level, but deeply.  

Saying a prayer, just speaking to God, regarding the things are what constitutes salvation. Belief that Christ Jesus died in this manner (See the above two paragraphs if you don't know what I mean by this) is the first step of salvation.  The second is openly admitting that you have sinned against God and asking for His forgiveness. And, finally, ask God to come into your life (the cost) and change you for the better. That it, its that simple.  If you prayed that prayer I would like to congratulate you and welcome you into the family of Christ Jesus.  I strongly encourage you to seek out a church locally to help you out with growing toward, and in, a daily walk with Christ Jesus.

That is all for tonight everyone.

Be well,

Jeremy