The Running Man

Can you hear the foot steps? They are all around you...often the sound of feet striking the ground are your own...

Running, running...but where to?

The answer is frightening...it isn't so much where we are running to...but where we are running from...

God is the Creator of all...including mankind.

Therefore...God is the source of all life, happiness, fulfillment, love, truth, goodness, joy...

God created man to bless man. This blessing was to come via fellowship. As God and man lived in friendship, the blessings of God would flow to the man...

Then Satan painted a twisted, horrible picture of God...and convinced the first man and woman that it was true.

At the same time he began to flatter the couple...lying to them, promising them that if they disobeyed God [the source of life and happiness] that it would actually make their lives better...that they would no longer have to bow the knee to a Lord...but they too could be little gods. They could call the shots, make up their own rules...be their own judges.

One problem with all this sales pitch...was that there really was and is a Living God, who is the Judge...Satan knew this...he just didn't want Adam and Eve to believe and know it...because if they did...they would have never listened to his foolish lies...

But they did listen...they didn't look at everything that God had graciously given to them...instead...they looked at the one thing that God had kept back [this was the test...if they would have passed this test...this with held thing would have also been enjoyed by them].

Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil...and when they did...sin and death entered into the human race.

As soon as they ate of the forbidden tree...they realized the lie...and when God came to fellowship they ran and hide from Him.

God knew they had sinned...and still God pursued them...encouraged them to confess their sins before Him...

This is the story of all mankind. We want to be our own little gods...we want to call the shots. We constantly run...and God graciously pursues.

As people run away from God, which is the essence of sin, they do so to their own suffering and destruction. They are running from life...and the cliff of eternal death looms before them...

And when God pursues sinners...to bring them back to Himself...He does so to His own suffering and destruction...

To bring sinners back to Himself...God had to enter human history...He became a man. As a man, and His peoples new representative...He lived a perfect, faithful life...loving God the Father fully...with all His heart, soul, strength and mind...as we should have but didn't. And Jesus came to pay our debt. The penalty for sin against a holy God [source of life and happiness] was separation from that God...or in simple terms...it meant death and suffering.

Jesus came...lived a sinless life...then as His peoples substitute voluntarily went to the Cross of Calvary...on which God pour out upon Him...the full strength of His wrath and fury [that was meant for us]. Then, after Jesus drank the full cup of God's wrath, on behalf of everyone who will ever come and trust in Him [from earth's beginning to it's end]...He cried out with a loud voice "It is Finished"...salvation was accomplished...and then He died. But the grave could not hold Him...after three days He burst the doors of death...showing that He is the Resurrection and the Life...and all who trust in Him will have eternal life!

If you haven't come to Jesus for life...then you are still running...

The question is...why are you running so fast in that direction...all that awaits you is death and suffering...