Once There Was Light...

You and I were made for a perfect world! Exhilarating satisfaction. Deep purpose. Intimate relationship. Unconditional acceptance. These were to be the normal experiences of every day life in God's perfect world.

Darkness Falls...

The bad news is that we turned our back on it, and now things are broken. We no longer live in the perfect world God created. Life is harsh now. Hard work does not always yield success. Relationships are frustratingly difficult. Life often lacks meaning. Justice is a distant memory. Poverty. Disease. War. Suffering. Death. All of this is evidence that the world is a broken place full of broken people.

Deep down inside, many of us know that this can't be how life was originally meant to be. What happened? The satisfaction? Purpose? Intimacy? And acceptance? While the reality of these things may elude us, our longing for them remains. And it drives us. But more often than not, our longing leads us to moments of counterfeit happiness found in fame, fortune, success, the approval of others, physical beauty, sexual ecstasy, alcohol, and all the other clever inventions we "worship." These "gods" bring us moments of happiness, so we put our faith in them and pour our money, time, and energy toward finding contentment in them (We are deeply religious people, aren't we?). So, while God gave us these longings for true contentment to draw us to him, we reject him and choose to orient all of life around these other "gods" rather than around him. This is what the Bible calls sin.

The Chill of Night...

But sin rarely satisfies the void; sin, rather, caused it. So our choice to continually sin, instead of embracing God, only deepens the emptiness. We begin to waste away - barely aware of our anemia, as our daily activity and addictions to these "gods" numb us from the truth: that the happiness these things bring never fill the hole in our hearts. Chronic discontentment and disillusionment become a stark reality as we labor in vain to fill our deepest longings for purpose and acceptance.

But that's not the worst part; the bad only gets infinitely worse in the infinite future. After years of reaching out to us, God finally allows us to live life with him on the outside. Our continual choice to reject God and the life he offers finally takes us to its ultimate conclusion: hell--a place of eternal separation from God, and hence, a place of eternal suffering. But God, who created us for perfect relationship with him, does not willingly send anyone there. Remember that he created us for his perfect world.

But our sin stands in the way. On the one hand, we have a holy God who cannot bear to look upon, much less ignore our sin; somebody must "pay" for our sin. On the other hand, we stand as empty, imperfect beings, alienated from God because of our endless list of imperfections and our inability to adequately pay off the debt of our sins. It looks hopeless.

A Light in the Darkness...

But God would not sit on his hands and leave us in our darkened misery! He sent Jesus, His Son, into the world to pay the price for our sin against God. And only he was able to pay our debt because only Jesus was sinless. He lived a perfect life in our stead and died the death we deserved, trading places with us to bring us into the relationship with God for which we were created. While Jesus died a cruel and shameful death on a Roman cross, three days later, as he predicted, he rose again from the dead to show his mastery over sin and death. So, Jesus can take care of our sin disease. His work on earth proves that Jesus has the power and the authority to transform life as we know it. So, in Jesus, there is hope for real change, hope for freedom, and hope for finding what our hearts deeply long for.

The Dawn of Hope...

Jesus offers us true contentment in that special relationship for which he created us; he called it "eternal life." It's ours if we put our trust in him and turn from our former way of life. Once that change is made, eternal life immediately begins, and we experience the full life Jesus talked about. Our experience of it is partial for the time being; we experience a foretaste of the exhilarating satisfaction, deep purpose, intimate relationship, and unconditional acceptance that will be our normal and regular experience once Jesus comes back to remove all sin in our broken world, restore it, and rule over it. Then, our experience of eternal life will be complete. For the time being, we celebrate and eagerly await what the Bible tells us will be a place that has no more pain, no more death, and no more suffering: a place of TRUE contentment that lasts forever. Yes, one day soon, we will FINALLY live in the perfect world in perfect relationship with our perfect God because of Jesus.

Come to the Light...

Friends, we believe this is AWESOME news. Unlike traditional religion, relationship with Jesus gives life and allows us to live it in the fullest. We are freed - not chained down by rules - to truly live the life for which God created us. Our lives have been and are being changed as a result of finding Jesus. It would be our privilege and joy to share with you how this message of hope has personally changed us. We welcome you to hear and experience it for yourself from any or all of us here at BayLight Church Community.

Because of God's tender mercy, the light from heaven HAS broken upon us, giving light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and guiding us to the path of peace! (Luke 1:78-79, NLT)