It’s Friday…It’s His Nature

It’s Christmas. Even so, we live in the tension between two obvious facts. First, the world is full of corruption and sin. Second, it was made to be so much better. People can ignore those facts if they want to – in fact, many have tried to portray our world as a product of random natural processes – but everyone deep down inside knows that we live in a place of perfection gone wrong. We make our longings for Eden obvious by our constant attempts to insulate ourselves from trouble and craft ourselves a paradise of success, prosperity, and pleasure. Ask anyone you meet on the street what he or she wants out of life, and you’ll get some pretty specific answers. No one is completely content.

The good news is that the Heavenly Father is a Restorer. For all the judgment and captivity declared in the Old Testament prophets, all of them contain a ray of hope, a promise that God will bring back and restore the blessings once forsaken. In the prophets, the restoration applies to Israel and Judah. In the Bible as a whole, it applies to all of us who believe. We can take these truths and count on the promises for ourselves because the restoration isn’t an isolated incident. He doesn’t just tell a particular people and a particular time that He will restore. He tells them He is the Restorer for all. It’s His Nature.

“Restore me, and I will return, because you are the LORD my God.”  (Jeremiah 31:18)

Our craving for restoration may be nothing more than a deep desire for life to work out and be fruitful. Or, like most people, we lament events that have shaped the course of our lives and wish we could do a particular year or two over again. In either case, whether looking forward to what we wish could be, or looking back to what we wish wasn’t, we could count on this fact: Our Heavenly Father is a Restorer. He gives back what we’ve lost.

That’s the message of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, the high point being the incarnation of Jesus. The Savior came to save, the Redeemer came to redeem, the Healer came to heal – our world, our life, and our heart. Whatever our loss looks like, let’s return to The Father who restores.

Have a blessed weekend. Make it better by worshiping The LORD with those who know Him as Savior, Redeemer, Healer and who celebrate the Christmas season because of His nature.

All For Jesus – Nothing More, Nothing Less, Nothing Else.

“He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, The King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see, to Him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.” (1 Timothy 6:15b-16)