Jul 30

God is love (1 John 4:16) and love desires to share. God wanted to create reality because he is love and love wants to share reality with others. But since there were originally no others to share reality with, God created those others.

More important than playing the child's game of Why, however, is to answer this question: What is your answer to this most fundamental question of why there is something rather than nothing?

If you have never thought about that question, the most basic, most fundamental question of all -- and don't know the answer, which is Jesus Christ, then you are in danger. For the day will come when, like the man in the bridge story told earlier (July 17), you will be swept away by the currents of reality. You will be overpowered by forces with might far beyond anything that can be imagined.

The force of reality that overpowers every person and sweeps them away is death. The Bible says that no one can escape that obligation . . . (Eccl. 8:8).

Go on: Make a list of all the people you know who have conquered death permanently. (Elijah and Enoch are excepted here for reasons not related to our discussion. We're not talking about people who may or may not have died on the operating table, etc., and who then were revived. I mean, list all the people you know who have defied death for ever.) Your paper should be blank. There is no one who has ever lived who has not also died and stayed dead.

Well . . . almost no one. There is one. His name is Jesus.

Scripture for today: 1 Cor. 15:54, 55
Thought for today: Only God has the power to overcome death.
Prayer for today: Lord God, thank you for using your power over death to give me eternal life in your Son.

JUL 30