On the Anvil - Max Lucado [16]
I really believe that.
28: Someday
Thousands of years before Jesus was called the Lamb of God, God promised forgiveness.
“Someday,” he promised Hosea. “Someday, I will remember their sins no more.”
“Someday,” God confided to Jeremiah, “these people will be my people and I will be their God.”
“And someday,” wrote David, “the mistakes of men will be tossed, not under a rug or behind the sofa, but far, far away. As far as the east is from the west.”
And do you know what? That someday came. On a garbage heap outside of Jerusalem.
Someday the almighty God, who has every right to make me burn forever, will look past my apathy, my gluttony, my lying, and my lusting. He will point to the cross and invite me to come home . . . forgiven . . . forever.
How do you view your sins? As if they can be swept under the rug, or as permanent blots on your record?
Look at the promises of God shown in this chapter. What do you believe they say about you and your sins?
For those of us who already know forgiveness of sins now, through Jesus, what is the significance of “someday”?
29: “God, Don’t You Care?”
Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?
Mark 4:38
Such an honest cry, a doggedly painful cry. I’ve asked that one before, haven’t you? It’s been screamed countless times. . . .
A mother weeps over a stillborn child. A husband is torn from his wife by a tragic accident. The tears of an eight-year-old fall on a daddy’s casket. And the question wails.
“God, don’t you care?” “Why me?” “Why my friend?” “Why my business?”
It’s the timeless question. The question asked by literally every person that has stalked this globe. There has never been a president, a worker, or a businessman who hasn’t asked it. There has never been a soul who hasn’t wrestled with this aching question. Does my God care? Or is my pain God’s great goof?
As the winds howled and the sea raged, the impatient and frightened disciples screamed their fear at the sleeping Jesus. “Teacher, don’t you care that we are about to die?” He could have kept on sleeping. He could have told them to shut up. He could have impatiently jumped up and angrily dismissed the storm. He could have pointed out their immaturity. . . . But he didn’t.
With all the patience that only one who cares can have, he answered the question. He hushed the storm so the shivering disciples wouldn’t miss his response. Jesus answered once and for all the aching dilemma of man: Where is God when I hurt?
Listening and healing. That’s where he is. He cares.
Have you ever been in a life storm and thought God was asleep, or at least looking somewhere else? Are you in one now?
When God silences your storm, how do you respond?
30: The Blunted Ax
Until the Cross, Satan held a cruel ax over man’s head. All feared the ax of death. Its eerie glimmer humbled all who faced it. From the greatest to the smallest, all avoided the ax. Satan’s mysterious, abrupt blade severed man from the living and cast him into the unknown.
For centuries men had appeased the ax, evaded the ax, ignored the ax. But its razor-sharp edge made victims of all, relentlessly marching each to the chopping block, sweeping down upon mankind an execution that none could escape.
Until the Cross. It was at the Cross that the power of the ax was dissolved and its true weakness disclosed. With all of the strength that Satan could muster and all the cruelty he could display, he brought the ax down upon the neck of the Son of God. The savage blow rang throughout the forest of death and echoed across the universe.
“I have done it!” Satan laughed. His wiry figure contorted with laughter. “I have killed life.” The triumphant scream echoed in the chambers of Hades. And for a brief, fearful moment, all humanity gasped.
But the Divine Figure was not to be trapped. His body rose from the block, his head still intact, his life surviving. Jesus had blunted the ax. Jesus had flouted the executioner’s threat. Turning to Satan,