“Jesus died for you so you can live!”     Read Romans 5: 6-11

More senseless killings/shooting made the news this week - Ukrainian refugee stabbed to death on NC train; shooting at High School in Colorado, several students hurt; Charley Kirk, political activist, shot and killed while speaking at an event; bomb strikes in Gaza killed at least 150 people; Ukrainian military deaths estimated now at 46 to 70 thousand!  A lot more killings in our cities that haven’t made the news or talked about. On top of all this we could talk about the estimated 25 to 30 thousand abortions that occur in the United States per week!  Not one soul is more important than the other - all equal in God’s sight!  Those of us that have children or grandchildren feel like we could die for them.  It’s one thing to die for them, its another to be taken from them.  But God doesn’t call us to die He calls us to live! To live for the One who died for us so that we might have eternal life. His name is Jesus!  The bible says that “Christ died for the ungodly…while we were sinners Christ died for us” 

(cf. Romans 5:6-11).

My thoughts and prayers continue to go out to all the family and friends of these tragic events.  So senseless, so tragic, so devastating.  The human heart is capable of anything without the spirit of Christ dwelling in them!  Our span on this earth is somewhat out of our hands, but our span in eternity is in our hands - we just have to put our trust and hope in Him.

Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.  And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die” (cf. John 11:25-26).  I have attended and officiated a lot of funerals in my short lifetime, I’ve gone to one too many!  Our hope in the midst of tragedy, even when we don’t understand the “why” of it all - is Jesus Christ.  He is our only hope in this life and beyond the grave. We must all live in a state of readiness because we don’t know when our time will come, whether by some tragedy or just the course of time.  That is why the bible says, “behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (cf. 2 Cor. 6:2).

May we continue to lift up our prayers before the “throne of grace” to all those that have lost family and friends.  May we prayer for national repentance. May we pray for revival of the church.  May we pray for the Holy Spirit to come down upon us - “oh, that You would rend the heavens! That You would come down!  That the mountains might shake at Your presence!” (Cf. Isaiah 64:1).

Pastor Rodney, Ecclesiastes 12:9-14