Search and Rescue--2022

For the Son of Man has come to seek and save that which was lost”  Luke 19:10 KJV   Once again, another year has come and gone and now 2021 is behind us.  The year started with a lot of uncertainty and a lot of questions.  How would the incoming Biden Administration react to COVID?  Would there be more lock downs?  What would our daily lives look like?  Unfortunately, it ended with almost an equal amount of uncertainty.  Will the U.S. Supreme Court strike down the vaccine mandates?  What will the 2022 elections look like?  And will the CDC finally be reined in, or will an unelected bureaucracy continue to dictate our daily lives?  

Sandwiched in among these major questions there were a lot of bad things that happened, and individually for many of us, some very good things that happened.  It was a year of growth and change and personal soul searching.

 Two days ago, we released our fifth installment of our Kinsman series: The Do Over.  More than any other book in this series, The Do Over is a story about Grace.  It's a reminder that everyone needs Grace, and sometimes the people who appear to the world to have the most actually are in the most need of God's Grace--the ultimate do over.

We just finished celebrating Christmas, and we looked at nativities and sang songs of the child in the manger, but Christmas is so much more than a sweet story about a little baby who was born in a stable.  The cave in which Jesus was born is symbolic of the tomb where He was laid after His crucifixion, and the swaddling clothes in which His parents wrapped him represent the grave cloths.  He did not come to earth to be a good man or a good teacher—He was born to die for us in the greatest search and rescue operation of all time.  The God of the universe looked down and saw our lonely, lost, dysfunctional world—a world which we were powerless to change—and loved us so much that He sent His only Son to save us. Jesus is our Kinsman Redeemer who came to release our debt, and He extends to each of us the greatest invitation we will ever be offered. But for His invitation to impact us, we must recognize the immense opportunity which we have been offered; then we must be willing to accept it for ourselves and fully embrace our new life.  And we have to understand that as we accept the invitation for ourselves, we take on both the ability and the responsibility to impact and change the lives of others.

In the books, the invitations extended to the recipients warn that if the individual fails to respond no later than "precisely at midnight" the invitation will be considered to have been declined and "no further invitations will be extended."  In reality, God extends His priceless invitation to give us forgiveness, a new start and a new life repeatedly throughout our lifetimes, but, if we refuse to accept it, there is finally a day for all of us when the invitation is considered declined and no future invitations are available. 

As we start the New Year, I invite each of you to see 2022  as more than an opportunity for a new resolution.  This year can be a time for a rescue—a moment for salvation and a new life.  Accept God’s invitation to you in 2022. “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

 

Alexandra and Joyce Swann's fifth  installment in the Kinsman Series, The Do Over was released January 1, 2022. For more information, visit their website at http://www.frontier2000.net.