The year 2006 has begun! When I was farming, the new year brought the hope that this would be that elusive “good year.” We would sell 700-pound beef calves right off the cow; soybeans would produce 40 bushels per acre and sell for $7 per bushel; the dairy cows would average producing 20,000 pounds of milk for the year; hay would be cut, raked and baled without a drop of rain falling on it; there would be no major equipment repairs; rain would come just at the right time in just the right amounts; and there would be no extreme heat or cold.
For you nonfarmers, it would be the perfect year resulting in financial bliss. I used to joke with my partner, who was twice my age, that the “good year” was just a tactic old farmers used to keep the young farmers farming.
The Bible tells us that we can have an “abundant life.” I believe most of the world thinks this abundant life is as elusive as the farmer’s “good year.” The reality is that the abundant life is the typical life of someone who knows God and lives in a relationship with Him. The results of this relationship are peace that passes all understanding, grace that covers a multitude of mistakes, forgiveness that takes away the guilt and punishment for our sins, love that fills the deepest voids and the hope of eternal life in heaven. Does that describe your life? If not, then I invite you to meet the One who offers this relationship.
God created us to have fellowship with Him, but sin entered the world and formed a barrier between us and Him. Jesus, God’s Son, was sent by the Father to eliminate that barrier. He did it by dying on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins. By trusting in Jesus, we can have forgiveness of our sin, which removes that barrier. We can then know God more each day by spending time with Him through prayer, understanding Him through reading the Bible, obeying him by surrendering our will and loving Him through corporate worship in a local church.
God loved you enough to send His only Son to die on the cross for you. He offers us an abundant life. Don’t you think this might be Someone you might want to know?
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