We live in a complicated world, where even when you make the best decisions possible politically, financially, socially, physically, emotionally and morally, the bottom can still drop out without notice and you can find your life totally out of control.  The illusion is that we have any control over anything or anyone in the first place.  All we can ever hope to control is ourselves, and in this regard we are only talking about the decisions we make.

We live under the false idea that if we were just smart enough, we would always “succeed”, always have money, always be healthy, always have close and endearing family relationships and always be “happy”.  But come on.  Don’t you know some really smart people who have trouble in their lives?

What is my point?  Well, this complicated, unsure, and I might add unfair world will not last.  God will eventually bring all of it to an end, and even at that, your part and mine in it will likely end well before it does.  So, maybe getting everything right to have it good in this life is not the point.  Maybe we should be putting our life’s emphasis on inheriting what is to come in the next life.  After all, the next life will be eternal and without “end”.

Here, no matter how smart I become, no matter how rich or powerful I become and no matter how many resources I may gather to myself and how much I am free to enjoy in this life, I will eventually get old and die.  And the getting old part is optional.

And what then? 

That is where the simplicity of the gospel comes into play.  If someone tells me about Jesus, and based on my faith in their account of Him I repent of my sin and allow someone to immerse me in water for the forgiveness of those sins, I become a child of God, and as a child of God I inherit eternal life in an existence, a state of being that far exceeds the best of what we enjoy here on earth in every possible way.

This seems to good to be true.  But it is true.  Jesus said:

I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in

and out and find pasture.  The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy;

I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.        John 10:9-10

The message and plan of the gospel is specifically designed, if you will, so that it can be passed easily from person to person.  Are we passing it along, you and me, like we should?  Can you think of someone you care about that needs this message?

A complicated, frustrating, short-term world like ours needs some good news spread around, doesn’t it?  Go ahead.  Tell someone.  I intend to.  It is really simple.

Marty Kessler