Monday, November 16, 2009
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Not long ago, we spent a couple of days at the home of a friend at the New Jersey Shore, just a block from the Atlantic Ocean. We arrived at night as this powerful storm started hitting our area. We went to sleep with the loud lullaby of winds that roared around our room and pounded the rain against the windows like pellets. The next morning, the ocean was something to see. Crashing waves, a heaving tide, a wild and angry look, and all kinds of junk thrown onto the beach by that turbulence.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Forever Stormy Sea."
I stood watching that storm-tossed sea, and something came to my mind that I had read in the Bible - a vivid picture of what goes on inside so many of us. God gives it to us in the book written by His prophet Isaiah in chapter 57, verses 20 and 21. It's our word for today from the Word of God. It might be a word that God means very personally for you. God says: "The wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud. 'There is no peace,' says my God, 'for the wicked.'" Now when God talks about the "wicked," we think of people who do some really evil things. But God's talking about anyone who has violated His laws, His commandments; anyone who's lived their life their own way rather than His way. And the Bible makes it clear that's all of us.
And our heart is like that storm-tossed sea; constant turbulence inside, constant upheaval. Well, like God said, "...no peace." Maybe for all your experiences and accomplishments and relationships and religion, those words would still describe the feeling in your soul so much of the time - "no peace." Forever restless, never satisfied, always searching, and sometimes like the ocean, even destructive.
A few chapters earlier, Isaiah explained why we can't find any lasting peace. He said, "We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way" (Isaiah 53:6). We've gotten away from the God who made us, and the God we were made for. And there's no peace there. Our soul is missing the only One who can remove the things that keep that sea in our soul so turbulent; our guilt over the mistakes we've made, our regrets over things we never should have done, the restless searching for what will give life real meaning, the uneasiness about what's going to happen to us when we die.
But in that same verse that says we got away from God, we find the good news of what God has done so we can get back to Him. It says, speaking of Jesus Christ, "the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." God loves you so much that He took all the sin of your life and dumped it on His Son on the cross, where He died to pay our death penalty so you can find peace with your God and finally then have peace in your soul.
When Jesus was here, He was in a boat with His disciples in the middle of a violent storm that threatened to sink them. He went to the bow of the boat and He said, "Peace be still," and the storm stopped. That's what He wants to do with the storm in your heart. If you'll reach out to Him and say, "Jesus, You're my only hope. Beginning today, I want to turn away from my sin. I want to trust You alone as the One who died so I can be forgiven, so I can be in heaven with You someday."
I've tried to put some material on our website that I hope will be helpful to you in a moment like this; to help you be sure you know how to begin a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and to be sure you belong to Him. And that you are experiencing finally the peace you were made for. Our website is YoursForLife.net. I want to encourage you to get there as soon as you can today, while God is speaking to your heart about this - YoursForLife.net. Or I would be happy to send you my little booklet Yours For Life if you want to call for it. You just call this toll free number: 877-741-1200.
Ultimately, peace is a person, and that person's name is Jesus. He's waiting right now to speak His "Peace, be still" to the turbulence in your soul.