Friday, January 2, 2015
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A dog and bubbles: Ah, There's an amusing combination! I think my wife discovered this when our little Shih tzu dog was just a puppy, a new member of our family, (and I'm happy to report, the only one with four legs), and she was kind of still discovering her world. My wife went out and bought one of those containers of bubbles, you know the one with the little wand that you could blow the bubbles out of? We used them when we were kids.
Well, the puppy couldn't resist those bubbles. She'd try to pounce on the bubble as soon as it landed on the floor, she'd attack that thing. And when they were in the air, she'd watch them come down, she'd wait for them. She was in attack mode. The problem is that the bubbles disappeared as soon as she got to them. She'd open her mouth to attack it (or eat it or whatever), and suddenly it wasn't there anymore! All that was left was this bewildered dog sniffing and searching and looking up at the new bubbles coming down. She wasted an awful lot of energy looking for them.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Chasing Bubbles".
Our word for today from the Word of God; Ecclesiastes 1:14. It's from a man who chased plenty of them. King Solomon, the ancient Jewish King said this, "I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind." Our dog would have said chasing after the bubbles. See, Solomon probably lived life with more gusto than anybody you ever knew. He was the richest man of his time. He built an incredible temple with his name on it. There were roads and buildings everywhere that he was responsible for. He had the best of entertainment. He had more women than you could possibly imagine, and he studied the greatest ideas of his time, and repeatedly he says in his book, "it was all chasing after the wind".
Chasing bubbles - maybe you know that feeling. You see something or someone that looks promising as a goal and you think it would give you personal happiness or personal fulfillment. So, you pounce on it with everything you've got and poof - it's gone! It leaves you sniffing and wondering why you're still empty - and you keep looking for the next bubble to come along. How long is it going to be before we realize that what we really want isn't any of life's bubbles, any of the things that earth can offer us?
Okay, Ecclesiastes 3:11 - Solomon got it figured out. He says, "God bas placed eternity in our hearts". See, there's this eternal hole in our heart. It's so big that only someone as eternal as God can fill it. We've been trying to get earth stuff and earth people to fill a God hole in our heart. We're hungry for something eternal.
Right now you might be aggressively pursuing a position or a possession or a person with everything you've got. But when you get it, you're going to discover what you always discover; it's a bubble that bursts. That's why Solomon concludes after his life-long search in Ecclesiastes 12:1, "Remember your creator, in the days of your youth". There's only one pursuit worth everything you've got - and it's a personal relationship with your Creator. Life lived for what matters to God. The Bible says this, speaking of Jesus Christ, "He is our peace".
Maybe you're away from God right now and you know you are. The Bible says we all are actually, because of our sin, our self rule of our life; but Jesus came to pay for that sin on His cross. He took the death penalty for it, and when you meet Jesus at His cross, you are finally as the Bible says, "complete in Him". So how soon are you going to give up chasing the wind? The bubbles? Looking for love and peace in things that will disappear as soon as you get them? It's time for you to belong to Jesus, isn't it?
Do you want to do that? Would you tell Him that today; "Jesus, I'm yours." Let me invite you to go to our website - ANewStory.com - and meet me there as I explain how you can be sure you have this relationship and your search is finally over.
Remember, you're finally ready for something that's eternal, that's unloseable, that's unbreakable. You are ready for Jesus.