My back hurts. Low and on the left side. I “googled” my symptoms and found out that I may have endometriosis, kidney stones, IBS, sciatica, muscle weakness, muscle imbalance, and muscle strain. These are due to how I sit, how I stand, how I sleep, how strenuously I work out (bwahahaha), and how I twist my back when I swing a golf club. No, I don’t play golf, but I’m looking for any excuse here because I know what’s really wrong with my back – it’s my front. It’s all the excess girth sitting in my tummy area. I’m trying to lose weight, but then Reese’s made Peanut Butter Cups with potato chips.
When you and I look at the world and the horrible things that human beings do to one another we want to ask “Why?” The news broke yesterday of another tragic shooting that left many families grieving. Immorality is being celebrated and paraded. Babies are murdered in what should be the safest place on earth – their mother’s womb. I shake my head and wonder, “Why?” Even in my own life, when I do things I know I should not do, I look in the mirror and ask myself the same question. I suspect you do too.
But I know why, and so do you. Sin. Sin opened the door wide for all these evil things to become part of the human story – part of me and part of you. Sin breeds hate and greed and selfishness and lust and every manner of evil. It is the curse of rebellion against God. When Adam and Eve bit the fruit, mankind was doomed to live in enmity with God, condemned by the sinful nature that has invaded every person for all time. Except one. In Romans 7, Paul lamented that sinful part of himself. He also asked a question – but it wasn’t “Why?” He knew why. “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature” (v. 18). He asked instead, “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (v. 24). And then he answered his own question: “Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (v. 25) Jesus Christ changes everything. He breaks the curse of sin and He transforms our hearts so that redemption – not sin – is our forever story.
Beloved, you were born a sinful creature, but God sent His one and only Son to set you free. You know what the problem is, and now you know the answer. Won’t you come to Jesus today?
Deeper Roots 