Thursday, December 11, 2003

In 1963, the United States Supreme Court outlawed prayer in America's public schools. One of the plaintiffs in that case was America's best-known and most visible atheist, Madalyn Murray O'Hair. Over the years, she was a vocal proponent of atheism and an aggressive campaigner against religion in public life. Then one day she vanished, leaving her sports car in an airport parking lot and $500,000 missing from the American Atheists Association bank account. The Internal Revenue Service seized Mrs. O'Hair's home to pay her creditors and some back taxes, and one of the items at auction were her diaries. And one entry said, "The whole idiotic hopelessness of human relations descends upon me. Tonight, I cried and cried, but even then feeling nothing." Then I was really struck by four words that Madalyn Murray O'Hair reportedly wrote at least half a dozen times over the years, "Somebody, somewhere, love me."

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Deepest Cry of The Human Heart."

I don't know about you, but that cry for love in Mrs. O'Hair's diary touches something inside of me. In a way, her cry is the cry of every human heart, "Somebody, somewhere, love me." And for many who do believe in God, there is still that awful vacuum. It's possible to believe in God, to do God's things, and to still miss the deep experience of His love. And without that love, the emptiness and loneliness in our heart is never satisfied - no matter how many human loves we experience.

While you are probably nowhere near an atheist, it could be that you've invested a lot in good things that could easily become other gods: your career, your children, your projects, maybe your friends, your charity work, even your spiritual pursuits. But the deep, aching sense of aloneness seldom seems to go away. Every earth-love has ultimately either failed you or failed to satisfy you. So, after all these years, your heart is still whispering - maybe even shouting - "Somebody, somewhere, love me."

Our word for today from the Word of God describes the only love that can ever truly answer this deepest cry of the human heart. It's found in Romans 8:38-39 , "Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present or the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God, that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." There it is - unloseable love, unconditional love, unmeasurable love.

God wants you to experience that love more than you can imagine, so much that He sacrificed the One He loves the most for you - His one and only Son, Jesus. The reason we are missing that love is because we've pushed God out of our lives with our sin. We've lived "my way" instead of God's way, over and over again. And that has left us separated from God and from His love with a death penalty on our heads. But God just lavished His love on you by sending Jesus to die in your place.

But you're still missing this love your heart wants so much until you respond to it by placing all your trust in Jesus Christ to remove the sin-barrier and give you eternal life. You are that close to finally making ultimate love your own. If you want to begin this personal love relationship with Jesus Christ, tell Him that right where you are. And, if you would, let me send you the booklet I wrote about it called "Yours For Life." We'll tell you how to ask for it in just a moment.

Jesus is the "Somebody, somewhere" that your heart has been lonely for. And you don't have to live one more day without His love.