For the lawyers, bankers, doctors and Jordan Peterson.

Listen along here:  https://www.pastorwoman.net/podcast/episode/22e38103/for-the-lawyer...

On Sunday I will conduct another graveside service ... hmmm. Strands of a minuet of life play about the edges of my mind.

All people--no matter their age, ethnicity or social standing, no matter where they are in the world--need God.  What's more, they find themselves looking to fill a hole inside that can only be filled by God himself. I am not talking about religion, but the greatest love there has ever been-the love of God for every individual. The great love of God changes everything, and once we find it, we are launched into the greatest adventure of our lives.

->You were created and perfectly designed for this loving relationship with God.

People are looking for God.  Pascal had it right: There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.¹

More than 2,000 years ago, the most important person ever to point people to Jesus came on the scene-John the Baptist. People flocked to the Judean desert--permit me to interject right here just how extreme is the Judean desert, barren, austere, but out they went to hear his unusual message, 'Repent!' Isaiah had prophesied that John would be the "voice crying out in the wilderness, 'prepare the way for the Lord; make his paths straight!"²  

Matthew records, "Then Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the region around the Jordan went out to him and were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins."³

Why would people travel some distance out to the backcountry to hear some wild and woolly-looking, desert-dweller preach at them?  They were looking for God.  You see, the culture they lived in was incredibly depraved, and any who were inclined to be at all righteous, were looking for the Messiah, wanting to be ready to receive him. Of the time, "It has been rightly said, that the idea of conscience, as we understand it, was unknown to heathenism. Absolute right did not exist. Might was right. The social relations exhibited, if possible, even deeper corruption. The sanctity of marriage had ceased, and there was almost an entire cessation of marriage. Abortion, and the exposure and murder of newly-born children, were common and tolerated; unnatural vices, which even the greatest philosophers practiced, if not advocated, attained proportions which defy description."⁴  Would you have guessed that about the first century into which Jesus was born? Why, it could be said of our culture today!

Our first century forebears were looking for God, and He did not disappoint. ' When the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law'.5 "Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan River to be baptized by him."⁶ Indeed Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River by John, not because he needed cleansing from sin, but rather to identify with us. Note that on the scene, all three persons of the Trinity were fully present, just like at the dawn of Creation. The Father speaks, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased",7 and the Spirit descended on the Son. 

Don't miss the point: when people earnestly look for God, they find him. Since man was conceived of in the heart of God, he has made himself available to all, saying:

"Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.

And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for me with all your heart."⁸ 

In the last four Morning Briefings, I have provided reasoned evidence and proofs for Christianity, proving that you do not have to 'check your brain at the door' to follow Jesus; actually, quite the opposite. But two elements remain:

1) there are some who have read and now believe that of all the world religions,

only Christianity is true; Jesus Christ is the only way to God and eternity with

him forever.

BUT, though this is true, they will reject God anyway, because they know that it will cost them something. After all, to truly follow Christ is to desire to be like him, to honor him - and that would require looking in the mirror, morally speaking.

2) you have read and you believe Christianity is true, but you want to be personally convinced. Friend,

->ask God to show himself to you, and He will. After all, God wants to be found by you. And whether you know it or not, you want to be found by him.

In a recent interview this question was put to a wildly popular Jordan Peterson -

"If Jesus came down right now,

would you be His son or would you be someone who's studying Jesus?"

--Saturday I will fly to Florida to conduct another funeral - a reminder that death comes for all of us... or does it? For the follower of Jesus Christ, we just pass from life to life, and that eternal, in the presence of our Lord, finally seeing Jesus face to face.

For my lawyer, doctor and banker friends, you are meant to walk with God - not someday when you have all the answers or when you have the time, but right now.

Jesus stands at the door of your heart, knocking--will you let him in?

Will you experience forgiveness, freedom and a life such as you have never known?

Up to you.

A song that says it all: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWzsYQqgdYc&list=RDHWzsYQqgdYc&a...

On the journey with you,

Christine

 ^{PastorWoman.net}

^{1 - Blaise Pascal, French mathmetician and philosopher}

^{2 - Isaiah 40.3}

^{3 -  Matthew 3.5-6}

^{4 - Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Alfred Edersheim}

^{5 - Galatians 4.4, NASB}

^{6 - Matthew 3.13}

^{7 - Matthew 3.16-17, paraphrased}

^{8 - Jeremiah 29.12-13}