Good News for Millennials

“Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things have passed away; behold, all things are become new.” 2 Corinthians 5:17 KJV

I have exciting news; a discovery of sorts. It came to me when I least expected it and it won’t turn me loose. It is the kind of revelation that would make a Methodist shout. I have found a safe place. You know, the kind that all the college students were looking for a few months ago when things weren’t going their way. If you will recall, it was the college campuses of our great land that provided their students with a room, a cocoon, a warm and fuzzy place, where nobody could hurt their feelings or assault their work ethic. Sort of like when they were in their mother’s womb. I’ve always wondered what it looked like in those vestiges of cozy comfort. I picture forty college kids jammed into a room built for twenty, holding hands and singing Cumbia. Hugging until the green monster went away. But I digress. Where was I? Oh yes, I have discovered a safe place. But unlike those college campus rooms, my safe place is real, and it provides a real solution to the real problems of life.

Before I share my discovery, let’s consider what the real problems of life are. At the risk of being labeled as naïve, I would suggest that there are only two real problems we face as human beings. First, that we will someday be judged for our sins by a righteous God; and secondly, that indwelling sin robs us of any hope of lasting happiness. Now you may reject these two tenants as a product of my faith-filled mind placed there by Scripture, but regardless, they are true. You can deny that stepping in front of a train will end your life but I wouldn’t suggest you do so. You will face God someday and you must admit there is a darkness within that keeps you from experiencing life to its fullest. Our real problem is not only what we have done as sinners but that we are sinners. We need forgiveness of our sins and deliverance from who we are. Those two real problems cause me to melt like a snowflake.

The only safe place from those two insurmountable hurdles is found in the Person and work of Jesus Christ on our behalf at the Cross. He died for us to take away our sins and we died with Him to separate us from the power of sin. The Bible declares that if any man is in Christ he is a new creation. This is not something that we strive for, it a truth to be embraced by faith. This discovery came to me some forty years ago and it has not turned me loose. God has provided us a safe place and I for one would melt like a snowflake without Him. As A.W. Tozer once wrote, (and I quote him loosely) “All the problems of this life are nothing compared to the weight of eternity upon a man’s soul. Once he is relieved of that weight by the gospel, the problems of this life are seen as temporary things.”