HAVOC OR HEALING?

Watching the aftershock of Hurricane Harvey and the introduction to Hurricane Irma, devastation x devastation mounts.  The death and the damage are so enormous, it is surely unknowable.  Who could ever gather the cost factor alone to such supreme wreckage?

With repeated scenes of destruction embedded into our minds, consider something astoundingly beautiful.  God sees our personal lives in even worse disarray than the turmoil we see on the evening news.  Mankind is strewn to the point of even unrecognizable levels from coast to coast; border to border....day after day.  Reports are endless.  

Set that massive devastation for every person in your mind.  And then ponder....consider what God does for us.  The healing he offers to the deeply ripped and sorely ruined masses is exactly His will.  

How would you feel if there were a Divine Hurricane that could breezed through Florida right now?  What would it be like if this DH swept through the wreckage; but this kind of hurricane is the opposite of the harsh one?  This particular one put wreckage back together.  This Hurricane strikes at the edges of plastered cities and leaves behind newly constructed houses, resurrected office complexes, and restored people healed from both injury and....even death.  This would be beyond fascination, huh?

And this is precisely what Jesus does for us.  His spirit sweeps through our sufferings from acute demolition and brings back the new (even newer) that we had earlier lost during repeated storms.  Father God has hit broken, ruined mankind with a punch like no one has ever seen.  His punch doesn't finish us off...but starts us up!

Four times the Bible uses a most incredible word: propitiation.  Romans 3:25, Hebrews 2:17, First John 2:2, and First John 4:10 offer Good News that's too good to be true.  Mankind, stumped by our own misery and sin, is slammed with the Hurricane of Healing.  God sweeps across our worried and confused hearts and rebuilds us into beautiful and unexplainable wonder!

Romans 3:25...Jesus was displayed as propitiation; taking our place on the Cross in order to free us.

Hebrews 2:17...Jesus was made to be like us in order to pay for our misdeeds, our misjudgments.

First John 2:2...God's Son swept through, paid our debt, and restored our hearts.

First John 4:10...God sent His son to pay for our sins.

Propitiation is the key to this most sweeping wind which is straight out of Heaven.  It's a word that one can hardly pronounce; let alone grasp.  Try to get the picture.  If a Heavenly Hurricane could sweep over devastation tonight and would reveal total reversal of rebuilding and robust enthusiasm for the people by morning...this would be the cause and effect of propitiation.  

This doesn't happen to our worldly goods.  It does happen intentionally to our souls.  God doesn't wreak havoc with us as we try to follow Him.  Rather, He wreaks healing!!!  The world barks, gnaws, and storms at us by landing rudely directly in our paths.  And then God...our powerful Father...will not allow such interruption to have the last say.  He shouts, "Propitiation!".....

.......and we all say, "Wow!  Look at how new everything is!"