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Has someone called you a lost cause?  A failure?  Has someone dismissed you as insignificant?  Don’t listen to them.  They don’t know what they’re talking about.  You were conceived by God before you were conceived by your parents.  You were loved in heaven before you were known on earth.  You aren’t an accident.

When you say yes to God you are being made into God’s image.  Print that on your resume!  In the eyes of God you are worth dying for.  Would you let this truth define the way you see yourself?  Would you let this truth define the way you see other people?  Every person you see was created by God to bear his image and deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.  This is God’s plan.  This is God’s promise.  And he will fulfill it!  And because God’s promises are unbreakable our hope is unshakable!

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Pop psychology is wrong when it tells you to look inside yourself and find your value!  According to the Bible you are good simply because God made you in his image.  Period.  He cherishes you because you bear a resemblance to him.  And you will only be satisfied when you engage in your role as an image bearer of God.  Such was the view of King David.  “As for me,” he wrote, “I will see Your face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness” (Psalm 17:15).

How much sadness would evaporate if every person simply chose to believe this–  I was made for God’s glory and am being made into his image.  Why does God love you with an everlasting love?  It has everything to do with whose you are.  You are his!  And because God’s promises are unbreakable our hope is unshakable!

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We are all made in God’s image and in his likeness!  Sin has distorted this image, but it has not destroyed it.  Our moral purity has been tainted, but do not think for a moment that God has rescinded his promise or altered his plan.  He still creates people in his image to bear his likeness and reflect his glory.

As we fellowship with God, read his Word, obey his commands, and seek to reflect his character, something wonderful emerges.  We say things God would say.  We do things God would do.  We forgive, we share, and we love.  In time an image begins to appear.  God’s goal is simply to rub away anything that is not of him so the inborn image of God can be seen in us!  Because God’s promises are unbreakable our hope is unshakable!

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We all ask the question, “Am I somebody important?”  It’s easy to feel anything but important when your ex takes your energy, or old age takes your dignity.  Somebody important?  Hardly. But remember this promise of God:  you were created by God, in God’s image, for God’s glory.

God spoke, “Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature, so they can be responsible for the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the cattle, and, yes, Earth itself, and every animal that moves on the face of Earth” (Genesis 1:26 MSG).

God never declared, “Let us make oceans in our image,” or “birds in our likeness.”  The heavens above reflect the glory of God, but they are not made in the image of God.  Yet you are!  And because God’s promises are unbreakable our hope is unshakable!

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According to Peter, God’s promises aren’t just great, they are very great.  They aren’t just valuable, they are precious! (2 Peter 1:4).

It is God’s great and precious promises that lead us into a new reality, a holy environment.  They are direction signs intended to guide us away from the toxic swampland and into the clean air of heaven.  They are strong boulders that form the bridge over which we walk from our sin to salvation.

Promises are the stitching in the spine of the Bible.  Receive them.  Allow them to soak you like a spring shower.  Let’s be what we were intended to be —people of the Promise.  Fill your heart with hope, and let the devil himself hear you declare your belief in God’s goodness!  Because God’s promises are unbreakable our hope is unshakable!

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It’s a shaky world out there.  Could you use some unshakable hope?  We live in a day of despair.  The suicide rate in America has increased 24 percent since 1999. How do we explain the increase?  We’ve never been more educated.  We’re saturated with entertainment and recreation.  Yet more people than ever are orchestrating their own deaths.  How could this be?

Among the answers must be that people are dying for lack of hope. Secularism reduces the world to a few decades between birth and hearse.  Many believe this world is as good as it gets.  But people of the promise have an advantage.  They are like Abraham who didn’t ask skeptical questions.  He plunged into the promise and came up strong.  (Romans 4:20 MSG)  Because God’s promises are unbreakable our hope is unshakable!

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From the first chapter of Scripture, the Bible makes a case for the dependability of God.  Without exception when God spoke, something wonderful happened.  By divine fiat there was light, land, beaches, and creatures.  God consulted no advisers.  He needed no assistance.  “For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm” (Psalm 33:9).

The same power is seen in Jesus.  He is unchanging.  He’s never caught off guard by the unexpected. “God never changes or casts a shifting shadow” (James 1:17).  God is strong.  He does not overpromise and under deliver.  “God is able to do whatever he promises” (Romans 4:21).

“It is impossible for God to lie” (Hebrews 6:18).  God will keep his promises! It must happen because of who God is!  And because God’s promises are unbreakable our hope is unshakable!

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Heroes in the Bible came from all walks of life—rulers, servants, teachers, and doctors—male, female, single, and married.  Yet one common denominator united them:  they built their lives on the promises of God.  Noah believed in rain before rain was a word. Joshua led two million people into enemy territory.  One writer went so far as to call such saints “heirs of the promise” in Hebrews 6:17.

As God prepared the Israelites to face a new land, he made a promise to them. “Before all your people I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world.  The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, the LORD, will do for you” (Exodus 34:10).  God’s promises are unbreakable; our hope is unshakable!

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The greatest example of humility is none other than Jesus Christ.  Who had more reason to boast than he?  Yet he never did.  He was utterly reliant upon the Father and the Holy Spirit.

What gift are you giving that he did not first give?  You love. But who loved you first?  You serve. But who served the most?  What are you doing for God that he could not do alone?  How kind of him to use us.  How wise of us to remember.

Stephen remembered.  As Stephen’s accusers reached for their rocks, he looked toward Christ. “Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed steadily into heaven and saw the glory of God; he saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand” (Acts 7:55).  Stephen stood on behalf of Christ, and in the end, Christ returned the favor.

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He sat near a gate called Beautiful.  The man, however, was anything but.  He couldn’t walk but had to drag himself about on his knees.  “Peter and John looked straight at him and said, ‘Look at us!’” (Acts 3:4 NCV).

The thick, meaty hand of the fisherman reached for the frail, thin one of the beggar. Peter lifted the man toward himself.  The cripple stood and began to shout, and passersby began to stop.  Peter explained that faith in Christ leads to a clean slate with God.  What Jesus did for the legs of the cripple, he does for our soul.  We’re made brand-new!

An honest look led to a helping hand that led to a conversation about eternity.  Works done in God’s name long outlive our earthly life.  Let’s be the people who stop at the gate.  Let’s look at the face until we see the person.

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A few years back, three questions came from different people in the span of a month.

Question 1: Had you been a German Christian during World War II, would you have taken a stand against Hitler?

Question 2: Had you lived in the South during the civil rights conflict, would you have taken a stand against racism?

Question 3: When your grandchildren discover you lived during a day in which 1.75 billion people were poor and 1 billion were hungry, how will they judge your response?

I didn’t mind the first two questions.  Those choices were not mine.  But the third question has kept me awake at night.  We are given an opportunity to make a big difference during a difficult time.  We are created by a God to do great works. He invites us to outlive our lives, not just in heaven but here on earth.

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Some of the saddest words on earth are we don’t have room for you.  Jesus knew the sounds of those words.  He was still in Mary’s womb when the innkeeper said, “We don’t have room for you.” And when he hung on the cross, wasn’t the message one of utter rejection?  “We don’t have room for you in this world.”

Today Jesus is given the same treatment.  He goes from heart to heart, asking if he might enter. Every so often, he is welcomed.  Someone throws open the door of his or her heart and invites him to stay.  And to that person Jesus gives this great promise.  “In my Father’s house are many rooms” (John 14:2).  We make room for him in our hearts, and Jesus makes room for us in his house!

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(simulated news broadcast)  “No question, the Nazarene will  be executed!  They’ve got the Galilean in custody—our sources tell us one of his own men turned him in… film at 11:00.”

A few weep.  A few smile.  A few walk up the hill to see the spectacle. The immensity of Jesus’ execution makes it impossible to ignore.  See the women arguing on the street corner?  The countless pilgrims entering Jerusalem for the Passover?  They’ll go home with a spellbinding story of the teacher who was raised from the dead.

Everyone is choosing a side.  You can’t be neutral on an issue like this one.  And today, two thousands years later, the same is true.  A choice is demanded.  No fence sitting is permitted.  The cross, in its absurd splendor, won’t allow that.  On which side are you?

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Our human tendency is to quit too soon.  To stop before we cross the finish line!  It shows up in the smallest of things– a partly mowed lawn, a half-read book, or abandoned diet.  Or it shows up in life’s most painful areas like a cold faith; a wrecked marriage; an un-evangelized world.

Am I touching some painful sores?  If I am, I want to encourage you to remember Jesus’ determination on the cross.  Did he ever want to quit?  You bet.  That’s why his words are so splendid. “It is finished!” (John 19:30).

What was finished?  The history-long plan of redeeming man was finished.  The message of God to man was finished.  The sacrifice had been made.  It was over.  It’s a cry of completion.  A cry of fulfillment.  Thank you Lord Jesus, for teaching us to remain, to endure, and in the end—to finish!

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When a law-abiding, timid electronics buff blasted four would-be muggers in a New York subway, Bernhard Geotz became an instant hero!  It’s not hard to see why.  He clobbered evil over the head.  He embodied a nationwide anger—a passion for revenge.  Yet reality makes us ask the questions:   What good was done?  Are the streets now free of fear?

On the cross Jesus said,  “They do not know what they are doing.”  It doesn’t justify kiddie-porn peddlers or heroin dealers.  But it does help explain why they do the miserable things they do.

Once we see ourselves for what we are, we can help.  Not out of anger, but out of concern and compassion.  We go to the ghettos.  We teach in the schools.  We build hospitals and help orphans.  We look at the world not with bitter frowns, but with extended hands!

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If life was just simpler, we reason.  More predictable!  But it isn’t.  Life is like a wild roller coaster ride of hairpin curves and diving dips.

Don’t we all live with a fear of the unknown?  The eerie inconsistency that keeps us living on the edge of our chairs?  And yet it’s that inconsistency in which God had his finest hour.  Never did what is right involve itself so intimately with what is wrong.

God on a cross.  Humanity at its worst.  Divinity at its best!  God doesn’t gasp in amazement at the depth of our faith or the depth of our failures.  He knows the condition of the world and he loves it just the same.  Just when we find a place where God would never be, like a cross— we look again and there he is…in the flesh! Inconsistent surprises.  Maybe the next time a surprise comes your way, you’ll see God in the middle of it.

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It doesn’t matter what I do—it’s never enough.  I’ll never meet their expectations!

Ever caught yourself using these unhealthy expectations?  Your brother made an A in chemistry, and we know you’ll do just as well!  or…  If you had a better job we could afford that house! Expectations.  They create conditional love.  I love you, but I’ll love you more if…

Jesus expects that we leave everything, deny all, and follow Him.  The difference?  Jesus’ expectations come with two important companions:  forgiveness and acceptance.  No strings.  No hidden agendas.  Jesus’ love for us is up front and clear.  His sacrifice was not dependent upon our performance.  “I love you,” He says, in spite of your failures.  One step behind the expectations of Christ comes his forgiveness.  Expectations!  With acceptance and forgiveness, they can bring out the best!

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No cell phone?  No computer?  You’re kidding right?   “Not now, thank you, I’ve too much to do,” we say.  It’s crazy, since the reason we kill ourselves today is because we think it will make us content tomorrow!

But a funny thing happened on the way to the rat race that made me slip into neutral. My infant daughter had a stomach ache.  Mom was out so it fell to Daddy to pick her up. I started trying to do things with one hand and hold her with the other.  You’re smiling….you’ve tried that too?

I sat down, held her tight little tummy against my chest.  She began to relax.  Her little ear was right on top of my heart and she fell asleep.  She’ll never remember that moment, and I’ll never forget it!  “Good-by schedule,” I said.  “See you later, routine.  Hello, contentment.  Come on in!”

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I’ve waited too long to believe. Way too long. What can I possibly do now for God?

God uses people to change the world!  People!  Not saints or super humans or geniuses, but people.  Crooks, creeps, lovers, and liars— He uses them all.  No wagging fingers.  No crossed arms.  Only sweet, open arms!  If you’ve ever wondered how God can use you to make a difference in the world, just look at those he’s already used and take heart.  Look at the forgiveness found in those open arms and take courage.

By the way, never were those arms opened so wide as they were on the Roman cross.  One arm extending back into history, the other reaching into the future.  An embrace of forgiveness for anyone who’ll come.  A hen gathering her chicks…a father receiving his own…a Redeemer redeeming the world!

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Not many second chances exist in the world today!  It’s more like “three strikes and you’re out.” It’s a dog-eat-dog world!

Jesus has a simple answer.  He would say, “Well, then don’t live with the dogs.” Why let a bunch of other failures tell you how much of a failure you are?  Sure you can have a second chance!  Just ask Peter.  One minute he felt lower than a snake’s belly and the next he was high hog at the trough. When Peter denied Jesus, the message came loud and clear, “Be sure and tell Peter he gets to bat again!”

It’s not every day you get a second chance.  It’s not every day you find someone who’ll give you a second chance—much less someone who’ll give you a second chance every day.  But in Jesus, Peter found both!  No wonder they call Him the Savior!

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