By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their starry host. (Psalm 33:6)
When Jesus was on earth, and after His ascension into heaven, those opposed to Him and His message were constantly attempting to silence Him and His followers.
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The efforts to silence Him became so desperate and violent that it led to His crucifixion on a Roman cross. The cruelest form of punishment reserved for the most reprehensible of crimes.
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It’s no different today. Our world has become so loud with the sounds of social media, television, radio, texts, emails, work, leisure, family, kids, pets…we are surrounded by deafening noise every day. The message of Jesus is still being shared, but it is in constant jeopardy of being silenced. The creator has never yelled to get our attention, He speaks in a still, small voice and if we’re not listening, we will not hear it.
When Jesus came into town riding on a donkey, the people lined up to praise Him. They laid palm branches on the ground as a red carpet paving the path for the King. Those opposed to the message tried to silence the onlookers – but we know that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever and the response from Jesus still rings true today. He said in Luke 19:40 (check out the passage for more context) “if the people go silent, the very stones will cry out.” There is a message being shouted right now by the creation itself. Romans 1:20 puts it like this – “His invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.” You can step outside, away from the noise and look around and see the glory of God in His creation. The creation shouts of a Creator, this is one reason why we believe it’s vital to shut off the noise once in a while and get out and take some time to listen.
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God will always get praise and glory from His creation, but our prayer is that you will entrust your soul to your faithful Creator and join in those songs of praise with all your heart. If you’re here, right now reading this, it’s not by chance. Embracing this message [the person of Jesus Christ] has more benefits for this life than we can count, and those benefits multiply infinitely into the life beyond. But the flip side is another story. Ignoring the message, and ignoring Jesus has consequences that are horrific. The prophet Ezra explains it like this (in regards to standing in our sin before a holy God): “O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift my face to you, my God for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens.” Ezra 9:6. Once we realize that OUR sins are higher than our heads and there’s no good thing we can do to take them away, we see the cross as our only hope. The cross is where Jesus made the great exchange: our sins for His righteousness. Christian rapper Lacrae simply said it this way: "He lived the life we could not live, and died the death we should have died."
If you read all this and get the idea that we think that we have it all together (believe me, it won’t take long for us to blow that image) or that we’re in any way better than anyone else, that idea couldn’t be further from the truth. The only thing we have to brag about is that Jesus is in us and He’s changing us more and more every day from the inside out.
It's tempting for us to separate and compartmentalize our faith from our business, but we believe God would have us mesh the two inseparably. It is becoming more and more risky to share these things, but we trust that God will use our small efforts and multiply them the way only He can do. If He can use rocks to shout His message, we’re sure He can use us too.
If you want to talk to us about dogs or lanyards we would love to speak with you on that – but if you have questions about eternal matters, we will literally drop what we're doing and give you our undivided attention, because we don’t believe there is anything more important than your soul. Please, take us up on that.
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So...get outside. Breath some fresh air. Shoot a duck. Track a pheasant. Walk your dog. But in all of those things, don’t miss the millions of arrows that are pointing you to the Creator. He loves you and so do we.