Friday, April 9, 2010

Sad News – Glad News

A few days ago, we received some shocking and sad news about a dear friend in the final stages of cancer. Our hearts were broken as we learned of this hit on a woman in her early mid-life years.

Sad news-Glad news! Each day reports bad or good reach our perception. The good news we heartily welcome, but the sad news is not so happily received. The news may be widespread or local, or it may be nearer to home, involving our loved ones, friends, relatives or our close family.

Glad news! A new baby arrives! There’s a wedding, a birthday, someone who landed a terrific job or received a nice pay raise, or even won the lottery!! Yes, those are happy times. Not to discount those occasions however, the best news yet is when someone without Jesus receives Him into their heart and becomes Born-Again, made new!

Sad news abounds in this broken world. Ultimately, the sad news for us all includes the realization that we are as the grass that withers. Our days on earth are numbered. We are reminded that we are not to proclaim, “Tomorrow I will do such and such”, for we do not know what a day will bring forth.

This is why it is so important to be prepared to meet the Lord! What if TODAY is the day He calls us home to his arms?

The extremely sad news is that there is a place of torment for those who pass on out of this life without Jesus as their eternal Savior. To avoid that place of torment is simple enough. God made a way for us to plan ahead.

Here’s the Plan:
Simply believe in your heart that Jesus died on the cross for YOU, and that He rose from the dead. Say with your mouth that you receive Him into your life. God will hear that prayer and He will “save” you and abide with you forever. The Bible declares that if we accept Christ, our old life will pass away and we will become a new creation in Him.

Glad News! It is a relief to know that your Redeemer lives and that He lives within your heart. So, no matter what happens to us here on this earth, we are only here for a certain length of time and then we will join our Savior in heaven. All our tears will be wiped away, and the sad news of our life-times will be no more.
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Note:
While referencing the word ‘grass’ in the Bible, I discovered too many verses to list them all. As you think about it, these really demonstrate the weakness of our flesh. Here are only a few:

Psalms: My days are like a shadow that declines; and I am withered like grass. As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourishes.

Isaiah 40:8 The grass withers, the flower fades: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.

1Peter 1:24 For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower thereof falls away:

Act 16:31 And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, and your house.

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