Complete The Puzzle

The Puzzle.

For most of us, the puzzle of life is incomplete. Pieces of the puzzle either don’t fit together or are missing completely.

Some of us think we do already have a nice, neat picture, with most of the pieces neatly fitted together, only to find, when challenges arise or a disaster strikes, that there are dark holes in our picture where puzzle pieces are either missing or don’t fit together. This seriously distorts the picture. It no longer makes sense.

Many of us never bother to look at the details of our picture closely enough to see it’s distortions and incompleteness. We’re happy with our incomplete picture. If the picture is colourful and interesting, who cares? It’s good enough. There’s a belief that, “It’s all a mystery we’ll never know.” This group are happy to NOT see the complete picture.

For others, we find ourselves in a situation where we both need and want to see the completed picture clearly and precisely. We realise that completing the picture accurately is all important. We may face the end of our lives when the doctor pronounces an incurable disease, a child is killed, a bankruptcy occurs, or we’re suddenly confronted with some situation that we know will change our lives forever.

For those of us that never try to complete our life’s picture these life changing challenges will often cause us to cry out, “Why God?”.

All the pieces of the puzzle are required to make the picture complete, and each piece must fit perfectly or the picture is distorted.

We believe that to complete our picture we need some vital puzzle pieces that can be found only in the knowledge of God and His Word (The Bible) and through an eternal relationship with Him.

A World of Irreversible Change

With so much pressure in today’s world, we struggle to complete the puzzle that forms the picture of life

Changes in politics, ethics, morality, money, education, and society’s attitudes are happening faster than at any time in history.

Knowledge has never been easier to access. It’s available in an abundance at the click of a mouse and yet the WISDOM required to put that knowledge to use is fast diminishing.

We see corruption and absurdity in politics, and other pillars of society, that are destroying peace and freedom with the state irreversibly committed to running every facet of our lives.

Theories about why and how this is happening are everywhere. Many of us are sure we know the answers to the “secrets” of why we are losing the freedom we have enjoyed for so long and who is responsible. The reality is that the true causes of troubled times are the same today as they have been throughout the world’s history. These causes are hidden from most of us, yet they are hidden in plain sight.

There IS Hope

Despite all that’s happening in the world and the frightening speed at which it’s taking place, we can be of good cheer for there IS hope and we are supposed to search out and grasp that hope. It really is freely available.

However, we must also grasp the fact that hope will never come from this world! When we say “World” we mean the systems, the people and the institutions that form our society.

Governments and politicians are hopelessly unable to rule the world with freedom and peace for all. Just look at the appalling historical record of the kings and queens, dictators, emperors, rulers, and governments.

Hope will never be found in the amassing of wealth and material goods. These can be lost in a heartbeat. The value of money is quickly being eroded through the inflation caused by the artificial creation of money and the substitution of “real” money being for computer digits.

Hope will not come through the education available in schools, universities or the millions of self-help books and articles.

Hope will not even come from the Bible if it is taught by stripping individual verses from their context and applying them to some sort of new-age success philosophy.

Hope will only come through the WHOLE Word of GOD!

The answer is in the WHOLE Word of God (the Bible). Yet hope does not come from isolated verses twisted to convey some man-made theory of how to have a successful life. Hope will only come with the knowledge of the WHOLE Word of God and that knowledge can only be fully revealed by the Spirit of God. Furthermore, the Spirit of God will only reveal the Whole Word of God when an individual decides (by his own free will) to accept Jesus Christ (who IS God) as their Lord and Saviour. This happens when an individual realises that he is hopelessly lost without a redeemer. What causes him to be lost is his sin.

What is Sin?

Sin is not about the deeds we do daily.

We are not sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners.

Sin is a nature that every human inherits from birth. Its source goes right back to the first humans, Adam and Eve, and its cause was disobedience and pride. It was a rejection of God the Creator. Man changed from the worship of the Creator to the worship of the Created. This is a very unpopular message in today’s world where we each believe we make our own way through life, and we are the masters of our own destiny.

Sin results in eternal separation from God, or what is known as “the second death”. Man is utterly unable to do a single thing to change this. This is why man cannot govern man. Some men may be better than others, even brilliant, but every decision they make is founded in the sin nature.

There is only one punishment for sin and only one remedy! The punishment is death. Death, not of the body but of the spirit, the real you. The death of the spirit is eternal and means a permanent, irreversible separation from God, forever.

Look at our discussion article Sin – The Root and The Remedy

Why Jesus?

The remedy is that God Himself had to pay sin’s price of death since He was the only innocent one able to. He did this by taking on the form of a man in the person of Jesus Christ. He was born of a virgin. He had to be as every birth from the seed of a man carried the sin nature. He was the only human ever born without the sin nature. He willingly gave His life in a horrific sacrifice. He shed his innocent blood so that the eternal justice of God would be fulfilled, and you and I could have a way to get back to God.

It did not stop there!

Because the Holy Spirit (the Spirit of God) indwelled Jesus and, since he was sinless, death could not hold him. The Spirit within Him resurrected Him from the dead on the third day as the Word of God foretold thousands of years and countless times before.

When an individual chooses to accept and believe this act of God’s grace and mercy he is “born again” of the spirit (John 3:3, John 3:7, John 3:16, 1 Peter 1:23).

The real me and the real you, the spirit, is made one with God again and the Holy Spirit immediately indwells us. In a moment, we inherit eternal life in place of the eternal death that was our destiny the moment before.

The Journey Begins

Now, the journey of Hope, peace, joy, and love begins!

If we will look to God (through His Word) instead of the things of this world (which will soon pass away) the Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth (John 16:13). Though the world will continue in its rapid downhill slide, we are separate from the world. We are in it but no longer of it.

Challenges and trials will still confront us but in each of them, God will make a way for us to endure and survive them. James Chapter 1.

The pieces of the puzzle of life will begin to fit neatly and perfectly.

The things of this world will grow strangely dim in the light of His Glory and Grace.