THE PROBLEM

We had a man come into my place
of work the other day and he immediately said, “I want to talk with the store
manager”. The store manager wasn't available for awhile, so he told me his
problem. It seems he had bought a lawnmower a little over a year ago and it
just blew the engine. He wanted the store to give him a new one or credit
towards a more expensive mower. In other words, to redeem the broken one and
make it new in some way...that was a problem…

When the manager arrived he
explained that the store policy is that we will refund or replace up to 60 days
on mowers, but the manufacturer has a one year warranty (which was also past).
I thought the manager did a good job of explaining all of this very patiently,
but it was a problem with no cheap answer to make it right. I mean, that which
regulates the transaction and responsibilities was clearly spelled out in the
papers they were given…so what do you do?

This is similar to the problem
each of us have today isn't it? We as humans are broken and unfixable by human
standards. Each of us has the problem of sin in our lives. It may not be a BIG
easily recognizable sin, but to God, sin is sin. If you don't obey his rules,
then you can't be fixed. God's word tells us that all of us sin and fall short
of God's Glory, (Romans 3:23). While we are told in 1John 1:7-10 that anyone who says they don't sin is
calling God a liar and that His Word is really not part of their lives. That is
a problem isn't it, because sin separates us form the source of life (eternally)
God himself. When we sin, we are responsible for the cost for the damage to our
lives, which is impossible for us to pay.

Fortunately, when God wrote his
rules, he wrote in a redemption clause, an escape clause if you will. It's
spelled out clearly in his rule book (the Bible) in more than one place. Places
like Mark 16:15-16 and Romans
6:1-10. We are told that the redemption we can experience is not dependent
upon our own ability, but upon the willingness of Christ to pay what was
necessary for us. What was required was a payment in blood; a payment of
sacrifice; a payment of suffering to fix what you broke and for which you were
responsible. He paid the debt he did not own, because he loves you that much!
In return he asks the you obey him and commit to living by His rules to the
best of your ability.

Now the man who came into our
store was helped with his problem. We actually gave him a loner mower until he
could check with the manufacturer. Redeemed or fixed no; we were just kind of
able to put a bandage on the sore spot in hopes he can get it fixed properly
some place else.

I see a lot of people who are
putting band aids on their lives, they cover up the sore spot, but something is
missing, something is hurting, something is lacking in their lives. It is the
healing that comes from God when we finally decide to follow the rules in His
Book the Bible. To embrace the need to sacrifice some things in our own lives,
to gain eternal life.

ONE IS THE LONELIEST NUMBER

Way back in 1969 a group known as "Three Dog
Night," recorded a song called "One is the loneliest number."
The basic concept is that being alone is no fun and not something most of us
want. I was reminded of that song this week in an unexpected way.

This week I got to re-experience a young children's bible
class. My wife's helper was out of town and I wasn't teaching, so I
"assisted" with the 2^nd grade bible class. You might think
that you couldn't learn much from a class presented for children that young,
but then, you would be wrong.

The class was about a man in the bible with no friends. No
one wanted to be around him; he wasn't nice and didn't treat others very nice
either. In fact that was the main thing he was known for, cheating and
mistreating people. Besides that he looked weird, he was really short and
people probably found it easy to make fun of him because of that, but maybe
that is why he turned out to be such a mean person.

Jesus saw in this man the potential for greater things. He
turned his life around and took the pain of loneliness out of his life. And
just in case you haven't figured it out, the man's name was Zacchaeus and you
can find his story in Luke 19. He was a Tax Collector working for the Romans
collecting taxes and cheating people to line his own pockets. He was so alone
that he was looking for someone to make a difference in his life and so anxious
to find one, he even climbed a tree just to get a glimpse of Jesus.

The bible class centered on how difficult it is to feel all
alone and how you would feel in different situations. There are times we all
feel alone, we feel unloved, and unliked. On the outside we may look to others
like we have it all together. We may dress nice, we may have a good job, and we
may have things that the world says means success, but we can still be alone. You
may have none of those things and be alone and miserable because of that. Maybe
that causes you, just like Zacchaeus, to treat others in unkind ways, but Jesus
still is the answer to the loneliness and pain we sometimes feel.

Once
Zacchaeus understood how much Jesus cared, that he could really understand his
pain and loneliness. When Zacchaeus understood that Jesus really wanted to be
his friend, his life was changed as no one else could change it. He literally
became a "new man." In Luke
19:8-10 we read: "Meanwhile, Zacchaeus stood before the Lord
and said, "I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord, and if I have
cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much!"
Jesus responded, "Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has
shown himself to be a true son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and
save those who are lost." "

Some of the most powerful and wonderful words in the bible
are found here, "For the Son of Man came to seek and save
those who are lost." How about you? Are you all alone… are you
lost? Perhaps it's time to start looking for Jesus, even if you have to put
some effort into finding him, like Zacchaeus?