Raison De'tre: Le Fin (Reason For Being: The End)

Raison De'tre: Le Fin

(Reason For Being: The End)

            The more the world changes, the more it stays the same. During the holiday season, we are bombarded with memories of the past. 70 years ago, a young boy, listening to everything older people said, thank God, I heard my saintly grandmother say, "The world is destroying the birthday of our Lord with lights on trees , buying, gift giving." IF, over the years, when she would not be able to recognize the commercialization of Christmas as today, the exuberant decorations as today, the spending and spreeing as today, with all the changes in the secular world, just a few souls have been brought to the knowledge of Jesus, his prophecy, his promises, the joy of being because of Him (raison de'tre). The end product of every spiritual activity, even the saving of just one soul, all of it worthwhile.

            This week in Chicago, two prisoners escaped a product of advanced technology, Chicago prison, back as in the old movies, tying bed sheets together and letting themselves down to freedom. Can we even imagine such in today's world? Next, we will see a stage coach heading west, next to the driver of the horses, a guard riding "shot gun."

            In other articles, in full detail, this writer has described how he worked each college year in the summer selling Bibles door to door (8 years). Onslow county, NC, a crossroads community called Richlands, and I remember as if yesterday and I feel sure its still there, a fork in the highway, one road going to Warsaw, one going to Kinston, sight of the Baysden Furniture store. It was there that two farmers, operators of the furniture store, Baysden and Sparrow, were counterfeiting $20 bills....here comes The Bible salesmen, it appeared to me that the people in the community surrounding the store, all knew about the money printing operation. (Supposedly money was printed for Fidel Castro, for him to use in some of his American exploits.)  Anyway, it was an old American-capitalism-free enterprise endeavor, storing fresh, worthless money in freezers-coffee cans. The government did not take a liking to this Richlands operation. I believe the men are still in prison. When the American citizenry, a lot like their government, doing the same thing, printing "funny money." In the government freak show which we must endure, Mr. Beneky-Obama-Geithner and their ilk printing-piling up more and more worthless money. No one seems to  care. So what if your groceries are doubling in price? So what if every nation in the world is propping up their own money doing the same thing? Unemployment in Greece and Spain over 35%. The only reason America recovered from the Great Depression as soon as it did (it took 20 years and WWII), because the rest of the world was not in depression. Now, every country, in the same predicament, Ireland, England, Spain, Portugal, Greece, etc. in bankruptcy. If that is not bad enough, the third world war incrementally but with all certainty, already started in the Middle East. We have a President who has never worked a day in his life, knows only how to play basketball and golf. Geithner, and most of the "President's men" never knowing what its like to perspire let alone sweat.

            He spoke and nothingness became somethingness. His word enmeshed with the Heavenly host, stars, galaxies, all interwoven in a magnificent tapestry of Him.

            In a well watered garden, God pulled back the curtain and produced man, image of Him, his being. The word love is much overworked, we use it for everything-loving cake, loving fellow human beings, even our pets.

            Compare the fact that God is love (1 John 4:8)..with the words "Love not the world, neither the things [that are] in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him" (1 John 2:15). Likewise, "For the love of money is the root of all evil..." (1 Timothy 6:10).

           

            Stupid movies, soap operas, magazines, talk of making love, one stupid preacher actually said, "Make love to the Lord."

            There are light years between man's concept of love and the redeeming love of our blessed Lord, a love beyond man's ability to understand.

            Only when you understand the love of Jesus, willing to give his life for your sins, the sin-sickness of the entire world, can you understand the breath and depth of God's love for sin cursed people. When you understand the creator of the universe, love for whom he wanted a relationship, you can understand the paradoxes of dying to live, giving to get.

            God does not need me but, for a man drowning in a river of sin and disease, going down in a certain depth for the last time, it is not hard for a person to realize-recognize, love the "person" who reaches down and pulls you out. When you realize what God has done for the worst of us, even the best of us, you put a new value on people of every strip and persuasion the way God values them.

            At the very end of life, it has always been a matter of values..me against me. My reason for being at the end, my belief system, my mercy system, my clinging to his grace. You can give without loving but you can not love without giving. You can have an intellectual belief but it is faith, ACTION based on belief, sustained by confidence, that makes the difference in your reason for living.

            With America's technology, the wealth of the world, more Americans die from suicide than any other cause. "In him was life; and the life was the light of men. " (John 1:4).