Daily Encounter: A Week-day Devotional by a staff of ACTS International.

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

"God has said, 'Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.'"¹

Some readers will be old enough to recall the once popular song sung by Burt Bacharach and the Posies:

     What the world needs now is love, sweet love
     It's the only thing that there's just too little of
     What the world needs now is love, sweet love,
     No not just for some but for everyone.

Hal David (the writer of these lyrics) was right in many ways. But as wonderful and as necessary as human love is, it isn't enough to satisfy all the cravings of the human heart.

Ravi Zacharias quoted D.H. Lawrence who, writing of his own pursuit of happiness, stated, "We want to delude ourselves that love is at the root of the problem of our emptiness. I want to say to you, it isn't. Love is only the branches. The root goes beyond love. A naked kind of isolation. An isolated me that does not meet and mingle and never can. It is true what I say. There is a beyond in me which goes further than love, beyond the scope of stars. Just as some stars are beyond the scope of our vision, so our own search goes beyond the scope of love. At least, I think that it is at the root, going beyond love itself."²

Lawrence is also right about the "naked kind of isolation" we all experience in the depths of our being, which is a spiritual loneliness. The reality is that we were created to have relationships not only with one another, but also with God. However, because our sin has separated and isolated us from God, we have been left with a God-shaped vacuum, or spiritual emptiness, within. As Augustine put it, "You have made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you." The world's many religions are all evidence of man's endless search to find God and fill this vacuum.

But religion cannot fill this vacuum. Only God can meet this need. And because He loved us and wants to be connected to each of us, He sent His own sinless Son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins to save us from our predicament. Thus Jesus is the only way to God.³ When we confess our sinfulness and accept Jesus as our Savior, we are reconnected to God and our inner spiritual vacuum is filled and our spiritual loneliness cured. For more help be sure to read, "How to Be Sure You're a Real Christian—to find God without having to be religious" at: http://tinyurl.com/8glq9.

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, please help me to see and understand my spiritual need and my need to be and stay connected to You. If I have never accepted You as my Savior, please help me to do that today. Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus's name, amen."

1. Hebrews 13:5 (NIV).
2. Ravi Zacharias on D.H. Lawrence. Source Unknown. http://www.sliceofinfinity.org.
3. See John 14:6.

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