Your stalker is out there. You may not ever see him, or even know that he’s lurking about, but he’s watching you. He watches you when you wake up in the morning, he watches while you shower and while you dress. He follows you on your morning commute and he watches with steadfastness while you go about your daily work activity. He’s got eyes on you when you stop at the gym after work, when you’re having a drink with friends, and on your way home. And as you settle into bed after a long day, he’s there waiting. Your stalker never rests, always watches, always waits. In broad daylight and creeping around in the dark of night, he’s there. He’s always there, a shadow lying in wait.

Your stalker’s name is Death and Death is a hunter. A patient hunter, stalking his prey with precision and endurance. He never worries about missing his quarry, for he knows they all succumb eventually. It doesn’t matter how adept his subject is at survival, Death will introduce every victim to his partner, the grave. And all your efforts to avoid Death are in vain. It doesn’t matter if you eat right or work out regularly. Neither the fitness guru nor the glutton can avoid their common fate. Some things we do may help delay the inevitable, but even then Death often strikes without warning. Auto accidents, cancer, storms, and fire are just tools in the hands of Death.

Each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment. (Hebrews 9:27)

It may seem this subject is a bit grim but let’s face it, the one statistic we can be sure of is that 10 out of every 10 people will die. That’s you, me, them. Everyone. Most people don’t like to think about it, but almost all of us have already faced death with the loss of a friend, family member, or coworker, so we know how real death is. But it is so much easier to focus on our careers, our hobbies, our friends, our social lives, our favorite TV shows, our vacation plans, or just about anything else. Death is not a subject we like to think about.

But the fact remains, death is stalking us, and as much as we may not wish to think about it, it may come much sooner than we care to imagine. We all know someone who died much too young and tomorrow anyone of us could be that person, so time is short. And we all instinctively know that death is not the end, so making sure we are ready for it should be our highest priority. So how can we be ready?

First, we must admit that we are a sinner. That should be really easy, for who among us would ever consider themselves perfect? Indeed, we all know deep inside we have made mistakes, we have done things that have hurt those around us, so let’s not waste any time with denial. Next, we must repent. This is also really simple; we just acknowledge that we are sinners and we turn from doing things our way and we start doing things God’s way. Lastly, we put our faith in Jesus Christ. For “if you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved.” (Romans 10:9-10)

Please, please take these steps today, for everyone likes to think they have another day, or year, but the reality is we may not even have another minute. May God bless you richly as you consider your eternal future and the reality that God loves you enough to send his only Son that you might be forgiven.

Learn more at: KnowGod.org

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Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

BAE. Before anyone else. A term to describe the most important person in your life. Most use the term to describe their significant other; so, for example, I would say that my wife is BAE. And she definitely is…in human terms. But there is one who comes before her, and should be BAE for all of us, and that one is God. This is not just my opinion, it is one of God’s commandments, one that God gave us for a very specific reason. Let’s look at God’s Word:

“I am the Lord your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery. You must not have any other god but me. You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea. You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me. But I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commands.” (Exodus 20:2-6)

Now, some people can find the meaning of these verses from the ten commandments a bit troubling, but in reality they are not so difficult at all. God is communicating to us his intended design that places Him first in the order of all things, and especially as it relates to our relationship with Him. Any difficulty in understanding often comes when we bring our own, modern day understanding to the text (a poor practice called “eisegesis”, which space doesn’t allow us to discuss in detail here). When we use the technique of understanding the text in terms of the original writer’s perspective (a more acceptable practice called “exegesis”) then we begin to understand what God is saying to us.

When God is described here as a “jealous” god, the word in the original language is “qannā,” a word that refers directly to the attributes of God’s justice and holiness. He is to be the sole object of human worship and he does not tolerate man’s sin. Understood this way, we see that the term “jealous” in Exodus 20:5 is not the same kind of jealousy we might feel in our lives, rather, it reflects God’s ordained order of things, and His rightful place in that order is before anyone else, or BAE. Anything less will not be tolerated.

This is a good point for us to be reminded that when God says “don’t,” He means “don’t hurt yourself.” There is a clearly designed order in God’s creation, of which we are a central part, and when we stray outside that order we begin to experience consequences that may take many forms. To stray from God’s intended order in any way is to sin, and sin always comes with repercussion. And this is where we see God warning us in Exodus 20:6 – “I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected…” So maybe the cliché “don’t means don’t hurt yourself” might better be stated: “don’t means don’t hurt yourself and others”.

As human beings, we often have a strong tendency to think only in terms of ourselves, but our lives are not our own, and our choices and the actions we take affect those around us as much as they affect us, and this is especially so within our families. Most of us have known family dysfunction at some level, and we see here that the ultimate root cause of that dysfunction stems from not recognizing God is BAE. So when we lose sight of God in His rightful place as Lord, and we pursue all those things that we desire, we really make ourselves BAE (even if we don’t realize it) and all those things, those pleasures, they become idols to us.

So what are we to do? How do we escape this tendency to put ourselves in the center of our lives? Simple, really: we accept God’s forgiveness and we start doing our very best to keep God at the center of our thinking and our lives by reading the Bible, praying, and trying to follow His commands. Psalm 119:1-9 offers us this encouragement:

Joyful are people of integrity,

who follow the instructions of the Lord.

Joyful are those who obey his laws

and search for him with all their hearts.

They do not compromise with evil,

and they walk only in his paths.

You have charged us

to keep your commandments carefully.

Oh, that my actions would consistently

reflect your decrees!

Then I will not be ashamed

when I compare my life with your commands.

As I learn your righteous regulations,

I will thank you by living as I should!

I will obey your decrees.

Please don’t give up on me!

How can a young person stay pure?

By obeying your word.

We can see that when we keep God as BAE, and follow His commandments, then we experience joyful living. That doesn’t mean we will be without trials or difficulty. Quite the contrary, it means we will be joyful despite our trials and difficulties, and that joyfulness will bear witness of God’s power to all those around us, and to our own families, and family dysfunction will start to fade away. And that seems an admirable goal, doesn’t it? So…is God BAE in your life?

Learn more at: KnowGod.org

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Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about Him.” -Thomas Merton

It doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re from, or what you believe (or don’t believe), you need Jesus. This is true whether you are wealthy, middle class, or poor. It is true regardless of the language you speak or the color of your skin. It is true whether you are male or female, young or old. It is true regardless of your religious background, whether you grew up Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Muslim, atheist, or any of the myriad other possibilities. It is true regardless of any lifestyle choices you have made and it is true whether you are willing to acknowledge it or not. You need Jesus.

You may be trying very hard to live a good life, donating money, helping others, serving your neighbor. Compared to others you might stand out as one who truly has compassion and genuine love for others. You may even be a social worker, medical professional, first responder, or a pastor or religious leader whose very vocation is to help and serve others. Even so, you still need Jesus. Because the truth is – we cannot be good enough. The Bible says: “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.” (Romans 3:23) The prophet Isaiah wrote, “We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind.” (Isaiah 64:6)

We tend to compare ourselves to others, whether consciously or subconsciously. It helps us stave off the feelings of guilt we might otherwise experience; because deep, deep down inside our souls, we know we are sinners. God designed us with a built in sense of right and wrong, but we frequently ignore it, deny its existence, or we rationalize our actions because we want our own way. We “feel” something is right rather than rely on God’s Word to inform us; and in an effort to further justify our feelings, we recruit others to our point of view. There’s safety in numbers because if everyone’s doing it, we tell ourselves, then it must not be wrong.

We would never claim to be perfect in front of others, so we are being disingenuous when we deny our sinful nature, even if we are only denying it to ourselves. “If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth.” (1 John 1:8) There must be a standard for right and wrong and there is, in God’s Word. When we’re honest with ourselves, we know it is not found in our self-comparison to others, or in how we “feel”, or by what we see others doing with seeming impunity. But then isn’t that why many of us do not read the Bible or go to church? Because when we do we may be confronted with the truth. Jesus said, “All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed.” (John 3:20)

Yet the purpose of God’s laws is to protect us and to show us how sinful we are. When God says “don’t” he means “don’t hurt yourself.” As our loving Father, He sets boundaries and rules so that we may have life, abundance, and happiness. But like a small child testing his parents, we push the boundaries and do our own thing because it “feels” right. Convinced of our moral superiority and reliant on our self-knowledge, we rationalize our behavior until we are convinced God doesn’t exist or his Word is flawed. We start telling ourselves that all roads lead to heaven and we resent those who tell us there is only one way. In other words, our sinful desires drive us to buy into a lie rather than accept the truth.

“Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 7:24-25a)

Everyone needs Jesus because there is only one way. And that way is Jesus. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” And in 1 John 5:12, we read, “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have God’s Son does not have life.” The fact that Jesus is the only way is nothing anyone should be upset about, though, because it is an act of the purest love that God sacrificed his very own Son that we might be saved. “For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him. There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him.” (John 3:16-18a)

Read the words of John 3:16-18a again very carefully. God loved you so much that he made provision for your redemption by sacrificing his one and only Son. How is it that love like this would make someone mad? And it is very inclusive, too, because God doesn’t exclude anyone – He desires that everyone should be saved.

So you need Jesus. And you can avail yourself of him right now and it couldn’t be easier. Just admit you are a sinner (remember you are being disingenuous if you say you aren’t) and ask Jesus for forgiveness. For “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” And remember, you are dearly loved, more than you will ever know.

God bless you.

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