Lent

Today is the first day of the Easter season.  It is commonly known of as Lent.  It is the 40 day period that leads up to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

As you proceed through the next 40 days, think about why Jesus choose to die for you.  He made a conscious choice to allow himself to be crucified.  After all, He is part of the Godhead.  He could have stopped it all, had he chosen to.  He allowed it to happen because He loves you.  In God’s eyes, we are seen as holy and blameless.  We are seen as without sin because our sin was paid for by Christ.  What an amazing life changing idea!  The sinless son of God, willingly allowed himself to be crucified because He loved me.

Begin to recognize how much God values you.  You are important to him.  You are a child of the living God.  Do you know that?  Do you live like that?  Are you walking with confidence and humility that you have been bought with a price, that your life has been redeemed, and that you are someone special in God’s eyes.

Suicide

You might be wondering why this topic.  I have a young man who works for me who is dealing with a good friend’s death.  It is a very disturbing thing to have someone you are close to take his own life.  Why would he do this? He was a Christian. 

Depression is a terrible thing.  It can lead a person to do something he wouldn’t normally do.  The devil is a deceiver.  He is the author of lies and he can lead a person to believe those lies; to believe that life isn’t worth living;  to believe that you have no worth; to believe that nothing is worth living for.

As a Christian I believe that God should decide when a person dies.  Killing yourself is equivalent to self-murder.  However, it has nothing to do with whether a person gets into heaven.  Your entrance into heaven depends only on whether or not you’ve trusted Jesus as your Savior.  Nothing can separate a Christian from God’s love (Romans 8:38-39)  Not even suicide.

I believe that life is a gift from God and should be lived to its fullest.  To take one’s own life would be to show ingratitude to the God who created you.  Job suffered greatly and he never ceased praising God. My life belongs to God and I am but a steward of it.  Suicide would be a rejection of the goodness and sovereignty of God.  Even when I am going through hard times, I need to remember that God is in control.  Nothing I am going through takes God by surprise.  If I let him, he can cause all things to work for my good. 

So how do I comfort the young man who works for me.  He has just lost a good friend.  He is a little freaked out by the whole situation.  I really need guidance in how to help him in his grief.

Anyone have any thoughts …

.