House on Fire

gun

Strong and Courageous

2/23/18

House on Fire.

 

There has been so much energy and dialogue this week about the school shooting that took place in Florida. Facebook has been humming as everyone expresses their ideas for possible solutions to the problems of gun violence. Often times the conversation becomes polar with high-pitched emotion radiating through the discourse. More guns, less guns, no guns, all proposed as the only best solution to the madness. How can we fix this? Or on the other hand, is it an unsolvable mystery?

The reality is that for us as responsible citizens, can discuss ideas, but we ultimately have little influence in the potential to fix the problem. It is not just about gun violence alone either. There are multitudinous numbers (I would say a plethora) of societal issues that are broken down which seem to be far beyond our capability to repair.  Ever since Adam and Eve lost their place in the garden, we have become warped in our thinking. Try as we might, the problem of malicious evil never goes completely away.

Humanity is thoroughly broken… our house is on Fire!

So, what should we do about it?

 If my actual house were on fire, I would first want to warn my family to get out of the burning house. I would show them the way of escape. The main motive would be to move out of the hostile environment and to a place of safety.

fire

Concerning the issues of social evil, it is important for us to do the things that we are capable of doing. Are we as ordinary citizens going to solve the school shooting conundrum? Probably not. The issue that we can address is the universal need for Jesus Christ to be our Lord and Savior. He is the life giving and life-saving rescuer that we all so desperately need.

Life is soooooo short. Our time here on terra firma is finite. The last time I checked statistically, every person who enters the planet, also at a certain point, exits life here 100% of the time.

 I think of Billy Graham, the man who preached to millions of people about the need for Jesus. Now he is in heaven reaping his reward as a good and faithful steward of the gospel. His life was all about extending the Kingdom of God to as many people as possible. He understood that the Gospel was much more important than trying to fix all of the issues that plague humanity.

I hope that we as Christians can understand this priority as well. In addition, if you do not have a personal relationship with Jesus, you absolutely, desperately need to know him in your life, in order to escape our burning building.

Links:

Tribute to Billy Graham by his son, Franklin (4 min.)