January 15, 2021
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I thought I was going to gag on the smell. I was a little guy, my mother used to drag me with her to the beauty parlor where she got her hair done. I'm not sure what chemicals they used back then, but I obviously must have done something horrendous for my mother to subject her precious little boy to nasal torture. And I wasn't sure what was going on when they put this hood-like machine on my mother's head. For all I knew, it was some kind of mechanical brain-sucker. I didn't know what was going on. Well, Mom used to come away with what they called a "permanent." Now, today, the chemicals don't reek like they did back then, and they've abbreviated the name of all that curly hair to "perm" - short for permanent, which they're not. They weren't when it stunk getting it done; they're not today when the process is much nicer. Let's get real here, perms should be called temps. They don't last.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "One Permanent in a World of Temporary."
Actually, it's pretty hard to think of anything in our world that's truly permanent. Our wedding vows promise we'll be together "'til death do us part." But for more and more couples, that marriage doesn't last anywhere near that long. And if it does, it still isn't permanent. Because death "do us part." Death took my Mom, my Dad, my brother, many friends, coworkers, young people we've worked with, contemporaries of mine, and my wife. Even there, they were "temps" in my life, not "perms."
We've all lived long enough to know that there are so many ways we can lose a love that we've cherished and that we were counting on, through death or divorce, a breakup or a conflict. Either we change or they change. We leave or they leave. And once again, another life-anchor is gone.
But there's something deep inside us that tells us that we're made for something more than this - a relationship and a love that we can't lose. Many of us have lost a lot trying to find that love; we've given things we can't get back, we've made mistakes that have left scars, all for love.
That voice inside you - that need inside you - that longs for one relationship you cannot lose doesn't have to keep looking, doesn't have to keep losing. There is a love you were made for. There's a person who can fill the hole in your heart. He's the one the Bible says "you were made by and made for" (Colossians 1:16). It's Jesus, God's one and only Son. Here's what the Bible says about the love that He offers you: "Nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:39). Well, there it is. That's the love you can't lose; the love that will never lose you.
And it's in "Christ Jesus our Lord". Why? Because we're living away from that love. Not by God's choice, but ours. Actually, by thousands of choices in our life where we've chosen to do things our way instead of God's way. There's a name for that. It's called sin. And sin makes me "god" because it says, "I'm doing this, God, no matter what You say." According to the Bible, it's punishable by eternal separation from God - a horrific spiritual death penalty. Which Jesus paid for you when He absorbed all our sin and all our hell when He died on the cross. And then He came back from His grave to prove He could deliver eternal life.
So it's Jesus. He is the love you've been looking for. He's the relationship you tried to find in so many relationships that turned out to not be the answer. And Romans 10:11, our word for today from the Word of God, promises that "anyone who believes in Him will not be disappointed." He will not let you down. Your relationship with Him begins when you surrender the steering wheel of your life to the One who should have been driving all along and say, "Jesus, you're my only hope. I'm yours."
Look, you ready for that? Let me invite you to our website as soon as you can get there today. It's really there to help you get started with Jesus. It's ANewStory.com.
This is a love you were made for, and this is the love where you'll finally be safe.