Epidemic

Hey what’s going on guys? Sorry again for the lack of posts the last few weeks, but here I am again. I hope all of you guys are doing well… I know I have been dealing with kind of cold/infection the last few days and I know I am not the only one to be dealing with it. Seriously, doesn’t it seem like some kind of epidemic is sweeping the city of Phoenix. Oh well, better get out there and get your flu shots.

Anyways, you know what I hate most about being sick? I hate the fact that you seem almost helpless. I have been sick to the point where I am curled up in a little ball in my bed and I just ache and it hurts to just move. Lately my throat has been hurting like crazy and it hurts to eat or drink, and it just makes you miserable. I know what I want to do, but because of this little bug inside my body, I just can’t seem to do it. I have been lethargic and exhausted, and I don’t even know why! Whenever you hear of people catching a cold, they always say something to the affect of “Oh man, I can’t get sick now. I have too much going on.” We live in a society that we lack a lot of stuff, but probably the biggest thing we seem to lack is time. We don’t even have time to keep ourselves healthy!

This scenario in a way reminds me of our relationship with God. Before accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we live our lives a certain way. A lot of the time, we live in a way that we think is fine, and this is because we don’t really know God and the standards that He has for us. If you have ever heard of someone who has been sick for an extended period of time, you will hear them talk about how they almost forget what it is like to be healthy again. This is the same thing with us and God. Before we get to know Him, we are completely satisfied with how our lives are. It isn’t until we actually get to know Him that we see the amazing love that He has for us. His love fills that place in our hearts that has always been empty. We spend our lives trying to stuff that space in our hearts with friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, drugs, sex, anything we can find so that we may feel whole. I didn’t grow up in church, and even when I came to know Jesus, I remember not feeling too much different, but looking back and seeing what God has done in my life, I am completely amazed! Still, even when we get to know Jesus, we still have moments when we can lose sight of Him and we fall into the same traps. We get sick, and we get lethargic about our faith, and it becomes harder to read the Bible, harder to pray and harder to go to church. A couple months ago, we talked about Paul and how he went from a murderer of Christians to one of the most influential people behind the entire Christian movement following Christ’s resurrection. Even after Paul came to know Jesus, and while he was preaching to thousands and seeing them come to know Jesus, he still went through these periods where he just didn’t feel right. Paul talks about this in Romans when he says “For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” I think we all go through these periods when we decide to get serious, and we try to truly follow God only to once again fall short. We treat it almost like a New Year’s Resolution. We decide we are going to lose weight, and do well for 3 days, and then the moment we cheat once, we give up all together. All of us have that little bug inside of us called sin. This means that even when we do everything we can to stay on the right path, we will have moments of weakness and we will slip up. Everyone goes through this! Paul devoted his entire life to preaching the Word of God to people, and He went through this! If there is one thing I could say to you guys, it is that you cannot give up! Even when you think you have completely failed, you have to get back on the horse and keep trying. Not for my sake, or even for your sake necessarily, but for the sake of this world that needs you! This world needs people to stand up and be the model of a true Christian! When you slip up, instead of giving up, you need to try your best to get closer to God. We are all infected with sin, but our only medicine for this disease is Jesus. No amount of good deeds will ever rid your body of sin. The only thing we can do to get away from it is get closer to God and allow him to cleanse us and get rid of this sin. I hope that you guys can understand that you will mess up, man I still mess up A LOT! But that isn’t an excuse to give up on God. We all have good days and bad days, but in the end this world needs Jesus and some people’s only encounter with Him will be through you. This world needs you!

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