Life can and will be breathtaking!

I got to thinking recently about what a beautiful messed up world we live in. It isn't the
world that God created. It was altered by sin and the ramifications of that change are in
evidence right down to our own cellular level. Yet, there are so many beautiful things about
this gift of life that can take our breath away.

I was recalling, for example, the beauty of the Smoky Mountains that were a frequent
destination when we lived in Tennessee. Hiking back along the trails adjacent to streams
of crisp, cold water, the smell of the pine trees and the sunlight filtering down through them
were breathtaking. The birth of my daughter and the chance to hold her for that first
time, breathtaking. Any of us could begin a list comprised of the many wonderful,
memorable things in our lives.

In another sense which we often choose to suppress,  God almighty has knowledge of the
moment in which we will draw our final breath on this earth. Along with and as a result of
sin,  we are all to go through death. This moment is suppressed in our culture due to fear
and we choose to ignore it on a day to day basis.

God, through His beloved son, Jesus, devised a plan which does not circumvent death but
conquers it. We will die, but that death, with the resurrection of Christ Jesus, is a moment
of glorious passage into the family of God. It is a passage, through grace, that renders us
acceptable to a Holy God based solely on the work and love of Jesus to make atonement
for our sins. We don't accomplish it in any way; we are given this gift due only to the God
who values and loves His wayward creation.

There was death upon that cross, but that death was life-giving because it triumphed
over the grave, over sin and over the evil one whose temptation brought about death in
the first place. So in a very real way, that moment of death is breathtaking and truly
breathtaking.

Are you a child of God? Are you saved by the precious blood of Jesus Christ? Have you
gone to your knees and asked Him to forgive and save you? God calls and woos but He
will only save those who are willing.

Praise Him!