WHO'S AT FAULT?

(First of all, I want to thank all who responded to last week's MESSAGE about my writings. I have been urged to write books for over a decade, and now that I've started, I hope some will read them. I appreciate your understanding.)

This week I would like to share some thoughts about the current protest demonstrations being staged around our world. Like many of you, I have mixed feelings as I watch the news showing people angrily shouting in the streets against injustice and greed or something written on their signs. I am sure it is exciting to be among those participants, but it is difficult trying to understand them.

One wonders if there is a point to it all, or whether it is protesting merely for the sake of being a protester. Unless people have valid reasons that can be stated and understood, it all seems a waste of time.

Perhaps some modern people feel they must stage angry demonstrations now and then, publicly venting feelings so that somehow wrongs will be made right. Maybe they just want to shout in the streets like they heard was done in past decades. Whatever their reasons are, it would be better if we at least understood them.

Mere ranting and raving accomplishes little. "I don't have enough." "They have too much!" "No one listens to me!" "Why isn't the government doing more?" "Why isn't the world a perfect place?" "Who's fault is it?"

Maybe I can answer that last question, but it won't be pleasing. We are all at fault. Because we are all sinful, that makes us all greedy and selfish and uncaring, etc. Furthermore, we frail, faulty humans can NOT fix everything to make our world a perfect place. It can't be done.

It is the immature child who cries, "Someone has ruined my life and must make me better." That child has not been taught the reality of sin. Our world today is filled with people who have been deceived into thinking we really can make this world into a perfect place. But perfection requires God, not street demonstrations or revolution.

Reality teaches us people of every generation will suffer. God's Word teaches us the only perfection there is comes from God in Jesus Christ. He died to deliver us. He rose again to bring us hope of heaven. Heaven will be perfect and will come only through Jesus.

There will be no lasting political solutions to our imperfect world. Perfection will only come in heaven at God's throne, a gift of God's grace in Jesus our Savior.

Certainly we must try to make things better. But unless we trust in God to help us, unless we place our faith in the One who is Greater and Higher than we are, we are destined to cry in the streets like spoiled children looking for someone to blame.

"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Rev. Bob Tasler
My Kindle Books:
NEW! "BOBBY WAS A FARMER BOY" (illustrated for children): http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005TMN95M
"SMALL TOWN PREACHER" (My second church): http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005G0FST2
"COUNTRY PREACHER" (My first church): http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005BZL3V4
"DAILY WALK WITH JESUS" (Daily devotionals): http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0050VRJX0
"MURDER AT PALM CREEK" (A fun "Whodunnit?"): http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005EMMBQU