Dallas Holm, songwriter, wrote these words many years ago: "All that matters in this life below is not what you are, or how much you know. All the world's knowledge can make the mind smart but the difference is made in the heart."
It's as true now as it was then; it always has been.
A couple of days ago, four young people lost their lives on a country road in southern Alberta. A young gunman shot four people and then turned the gun on himself. Only one of the victims survived to tell the tale. At this moment, this lone survivor is recovering from gunshot wounds in hospital, family present, and friends sending messages from all across the country. Folks have rallied all around the families of ALL the people who died as well, whether they be the family of the aggressor or of the victims.
It's at times like this that people acknowledge what's most important and let petty things go, like who's wearing what to the party and what so-and-so said about the neighbor's dog. (Just so you know, these are random imagined scenarios and bear no resemblance to any one person's situation).
The things that matter are those things which will last. People - the beings who live inside the flesh-shells we call bodies - will last. What happens to those entities matters. That's why God invested so much in us. That's why Jesus came.
And that's why we celebrate it. If He had not come, there would have been no hope for mankind. None at all. Just an outside-in religion (that is, effort to appease the divine) which might work and might not. But Jesus came to make a way to God so that people - the part that lives forever - could spend that forever with Him instead of in darkness. To Him, THAT is all that matters.
It's as true now as it was then; it always has been.
A couple of days ago, four young people lost their lives on a country road in southern Alberta. A young gunman shot four people and then turned the gun on himself. Only one of the victims survived to tell the tale. At this moment, this lone survivor is recovering from gunshot wounds in hospital, family present, and friends sending messages from all across the country. Folks have rallied all around the families of ALL the people who died as well, whether they be the family of the aggressor or of the victims.
It's at times like this that people acknowledge what's most important and let petty things go, like who's wearing what to the party and what so-and-so said about the neighbor's dog. (Just so you know, these are random imagined scenarios and bear no resemblance to any one person's situation).
The things that matter are those things which will last. People - the beings who live inside the flesh-shells we call bodies - will last. What happens to those entities matters. That's why God invested so much in us. That's why Jesus came.
And that's why we celebrate it. If He had not come, there would have been no hope for mankind. None at all. Just an outside-in religion (that is, effort to appease the divine) which might work and might not. But Jesus came to make a way to God so that people - the part that lives forever - could spend that forever with Him instead of in darkness. To Him, THAT is all that matters.
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