Tuesday, January 15, 2019
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My father-in-law gave my wife and her sister Grandma and Granddad's old farm house in the mountains, and so we had to do some restoring on that little special spot. And since we were able to be there only occasionally, my wife decided to plant accordingly. She said, "I'm planting perennials." Now I'm kind of horticulturally challenged, so my wife had to explain a little further. I'm beginning to understand better now that you can actually plant annuals or perennials. Annuals will bloom for a little while - let's say, like geraniums (How am I doing?) and then they'll be gone. Unless you replant geraniums the next year, which is extra work and hard to do when you're not there. Nope. We need perennials. So my wife planted things like crepe myrtle, and she planted azaleas, she planted honeysuckle. (Hey, I'm getting good at this.) Now as you might guess from their name, those perennials are not going to die on you. Perennials will always be there for you! We all need perennials!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Beautiful, Then Gone."
In every garden or yard, there are always going to be those things that bloom for a little while and then they're gone. But it's nice to know there's something perennial, too, not just in your yard but in your life. Our life scrapbook is filled with relationships that were beautiful for a while and then were gone. Experiences, accomplishments that were enjoyable for a season and then they were gone or no longer satisfying. It's just part of life. There's a lot of temporary.
But the longer we live, the more we get tired of temporary and the more we want something perennial - something or someone we know will always be there for us. If you find yourself with a restless heart at this point in your life, there's a very good reason. It's explained in our word for today from the Word of God, Ecclesiastes 3:11. It says, "God has set eternity in the hearts of men." Let me tell you, those nine words explain so much of our search for peace and satisfaction!
God has created you and me with this vacancy inside that can only be filled with something eternal; something that has no ending. And that's why that hole in your heart has never really gone away. Friendships end, romances end, even marriages, by death or by divorce. And every pleasure ends; every experience ends. And our heart gets tired of saying again, "It's over." God made you for something that's never over--something perennial!
And obviously, only Someone eternal can fill the eternity hole in your heart. Only God can. The Bible introduces us to a woman Jesus met at a well one day; a woman who had searched for something lasting in a series of relationships with men. But nothing lasted; nothing satisfied. Actually, no earth-relationship can ever satisfy this eternity-appetite in your heart. Jesus used the woman's daily trips to this well as an illustration of her elusive search for satisfying love.
He said, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again." Those words might describe exactly how you felt in your heart so many times...thirsty again. "But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become a spring of water, welling up to eternal life" (John 4:13-14). There's that word eternal. Jesus said, "If you open your heart to Me, I'll come in and be the eternal relationship your heart's been looking for your whole life."
But He had to die to make that possible. It's sin-the running of our own life that cut us off from the God who made us. But Jesus' death on the cross paid for that sin and made possible an unloseable relationship with God.
The hole in your heart was made for Jesus. Why don't you let today be the day when you finally begin the one relationship that will always, always be there for you. Tell Him you want Him to be your personal Savior. Our website is all about this. It's about how to be sure you belong to Him. Would you let that be a landing place for you today? It's ANewStory.com. I invite you to go there. I think you could come away changed.
You've seen enough of life's temporary; things that are there for a while and then they're gone. You're about to walk into the perennial, that forever love-relationship with Jesus Christ that is never over.