Ron Hutchcraft Ministries - Where You Were Born to Be - #4855

Friday, August 19, 2005

Hey, you could use a good fish story today, huh? Well, once upon a time there were these beautiful fish who lived five miles under the ocean. How do I know? They were the subject of a PBS television special. So this is a for real fish story. Now, because these fish are really striking - they are incredibly colorful - some folks thought they might look good in someone's tropical fish aquarium. So they tried to bring these fish to the surface. They didn't make it. They blew up when they got near the surface! They were designed to live under that pressure at the bottom. Well, no happy ending, except they're leaving the rest of them where they belong - five miles under the ocean because that's where they are created to be!

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Where You Were Born to Be."

You know, it really works this way in all of God's creation. There's an environment that things and people were created to be in, and things really work when they're in that place. They really don't work very well when they're not where they were designed to be. Well, thankfully, God makes very clear the environment you and I were created for. So we don't have to waste our lives searching for it. In fact, probably the single most important question you have to answer while we're on earth is this: Why am I here?

God answers that question in six simple, but life-changing words in His Book - the Bible. Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Colossians 1:16 . Speaking of Jesus Christ, the Bible says, "All things were" - and here are those six words - "created by Him and for Him." Now, try putting your name in that Biblical statement. Here's your name: "_____ was created by Jesus and for Jesus." Just like those fish were created to be in the pressure of that deep sea environment, just like the earth was created to be in an orbit around the sun, you were created for Jesus, you were created by Jesus for a relationship with Jesus, where you live for Jesus. When you have this personal relationship with Him, you're finally where you were born to be.

Problem: We don't live for the One who gave us our life. We live for ourselves. Again, in God's own words, "All of us have wandered away like sheep; each of us has turned to our own way" (Isaiah 53:6 ). The Bible has a word for this rebellion of ours - sin; middle letter - I. And it says that our sin separates us from the One we were made by and made for. If we die with that sin-wall still there, it's there forever.

When those deep-sea fish are outside the environment they were made to live in, they eventually die, and so do we. And some of that dying happens even now as we keep looking for love in places that don't deliver it - looking for some inner peace, some fulfillment in achievements and relationships and experiences that can't possibly give it to us because we're not where we were born to be - knowing Jesus, living for the One who gave us our life and who gave His life for us.

That's the only way we could have a chance to get into the orbit we were created for. All those sins of ours have hell as their penalty - a penalty you and I deserved to pay. A penalty that God's Son paid in our place when He died on the cross. Whether or not you ever experience why you're here, whether or not you ever see heaven depends totally on what you do with what Jesus did for you. His call to you is to put your total trust in Him to be the rescuer from your sin. The moment you do that, the relationship you were born for becomes yours forever.

If you've wondered why life isn't delivering - why it isn't working, if you want to experience the peace and the wholeness that only a relationship with Jesus can give you, then I hope you'll tell Him right now that you want Him to come into your life. And then I hope you'll let me send you a little booklet I wrote about beginning this relationship called Yours For Life. A couple of ways you can get it. One is to contact us at yoursforlife.net or to call us toll free at 1-877-741-1200.

All these years you've been away from the One that your heart's been searching for all along. Isn't it time to experience the relationship you were made for, and to be finally where you were born to be.