Rescued from Emptiness
...it was not with perishable things...that you were redeemed from
the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors,
but with the precious blood of Christ...
1 Peter 1:18-19
Duke, our Labrador retriever, seldom retrieves a ball in our yard. However, the first time we took Duke to our land, he quickly found the pond and plunged in. Don threw a stick into the water. Duke immediately swam to the stick and brought it back. Duke retrieved the stick again and again and again. With his webbed feet, he is designed to swim and retrieve. He naturally does what he’s created to do.
All things are created by God for a purpose. You and I are designed to glorify God and fellowship with Him. (Isaiah 43:7, 1 Corinthians 1:9) This brings us joy and fulfillment. However, our fallen nature pulls us away from our created purpose. As a result, those who live apart from a personal relationship with Jesus experience unfulfillment and emptiness.
A young man we know was raised going to church. However, after leaving home for college, he ceased any involvement in church. Recently, this young man came to his father and said, “I’ve felt empty for years. I knew something was missing from my life, but I didn’t know what. Today, I heard a man on the radio talking about the difference between religion and a personal relationship with Jesus. That’s what is missing. A relationship with Jesus is what I need.” The father joyfully declared that his son now knows Jesus personally. His hunger to increasingly know Jesus has been awakened.
Are you caught up in religion? Are you repetitively following rituals that leave you empty? To know Jesus personally is to delight in exalting Him. It is to experience daily fulfilling fellowship with Him through prayer and Bible study. This is the purpose for which you were created.
Jesus, I pray for those reading who don’t know you personally, that today they would acknowledge you as Lord. Rescue them out of emptiness into a life of increasingly knowing you.
Jan Burkhart
