Ending Chaos
(Update: There is an increasing amount of chaos across the world with much of it coming from Islamic extremism. Yesterday, a jihadist attacked in Chattanooga, Tennessee killing four marines and severely wounding one sailor. There was chaos in that city, and even though we may not live there, many of us felt that chaos in our hearts. Islam cannot end chaos, it can only create it. Only the One True God has the power to end chaos in our hearts and replace it with peace. – Ed Wrather 07.17.15)
There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one. Their throat is an open tomb; with their tongues they have practiced deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; destruction and misery are in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. – Romans 3:10-17 NKJV.
Do not enter the path of the wicked, and do not walk in the way of evil. For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence. But the path of the just is like the shining sun, that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day. The way of the wicked is like darkness; they do not know what makes them stumble. – Proverbs 4:14; 17-19 NKJV.
Why did a 54-year-old French woman drive 12 miles (18 km) up the wrong side of a French highway? No one knows, but she was arrested and placed in a psychiatric hospital. Really it was a wondrous miracle that the woman was not killed in her wrong way drive! There were, however, seven accidents involving 18 vehicles as they tried to avoid the woman. Two people were injured slightly in the chaos created between the cities of Toulouse and Bordeaux, and it is even more of a miracle that no one was killed or severely injured in the chaos created by the wrong way drive.
There are many whose lives resemble the wrong way drive of the 54-year-old woman made in France. Is your life like a car being driven the wrong way up a major highway? If so, many of the accidents, and much of the chaos in the lives of everything around you may very well be the result of your wrong way life. You may realize that things are not quite right in your life, but that’s the way it has always been, and so you think it can never change. Solomon writes in the book of Proverbs, “The way of the wicked is like darkness; they do not know what makes them stumble.” The apostle Paul writes in the New Testament, “…destruction and misery are in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known.”
You do not have to live your life in the darkness, in destruction and misery. You do not have to live your life continually stumbling. You do not have to live your life causing chaos for all those around you. You do not have to live your life in frustration and depression, because you can come out of the darkness! Solomon also writes, “But the path of the just is like the shining sun, that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day.”
We can become “just” not through any good works that we may do, but through Jesus. We are told in Romans 5:1, “…having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” When we receive Christ as our Savior and focus our lives upon Him, we will come to an end of chaos in our lives. Romans 8:5-6 makes this clear, “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.”
Even further direction is given by the apostle Paul about how you can put an end to chaos in your life in Romans 13:12-14, “The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.”
Let us “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” and then our path will be “like the shining sun, that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day.”
(You do not have to live your life in the darkness, in destruction and misery. You do not have to live your life continually stumbling.)