Your Daddy Matters

On Saturday my club baseball team played after a three-week hiatus.  When I slid into second base ahead of the throw, I bent my right wrist back.  I never used to be sore after playing baseball as a young person.  The only thing which experienced soreness was my throwing arm after pitching.  Now I have all sorts of lingering injuries:  knee, calf, hamstring, wrist, AND shoulder.  Getting older makes a person long for heaven!

As I grimaced and moved the wrist around, the second baseman said, "Injury?"  "Just aggravated an old one," I said.  Then she said something I did not expect:  "That's because you came from apes."  While I was sorting out whether it was intended as a personal insult based upon my appearance or sharing her views of the origin of the human race, the ball was hit and I was off to third.  I found the comment disturbing because I do not believe that any human being is a descendant of apes.  I believe that Adam was the first human being, formed by a loving God in His own image.

Her comment prompted me to ask the question:  how would my life be different if I truly believed my family tree branched off from apes in the distant past.  If an ape is my distant relative, than I was not created in the image of God.  Human beings then are no different than any other animal.  Ethics and morality become empty philosophies with no grounding in absolute truth.  As animals are driven by instinct without free will, so my highest purpose in life is to exercise my glands to feed the desires of my flesh.  There is no heaven, and certainly no hell.  There is no absolute right and wrong.  There is o future judgment but no future hope.  The only thing I could be certain of is disappointment, misery, and death.  Life is pointless, and the sooner it is over the better.

I don't believe in God because it is convenient for me to do so.  I believe and trust in Him because I am convinced the Bible is the Word of God.  Jesus came to earth, lived a perfect life in fulfillment of scripture, and rose from the dead proving the validity of His claims.  God created the order we see in the universe, established all natural laws, and created all plant, animal, and human life according to each kind.  The more the scientists investigate into the cell, DNA, and even blood clotting, instead of mastery the mysteries expand.  There has been an information explosion in the past 100 years.  What the increase of knowledge has done is enlighten us to more things we do not know!

Your family tree makes a difference in how you live.  If your great-great-grandpappy was an ape, you are no better than one yourself.  God has created man to glorify Him and to make Himself known to all people.  Sin has separated man from God.  God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and be saved from eternal punishment in hell - the just punishment for a single sin.  Jesus gave His life so all might be reconciled to God and experience the forgiveness, peace, and love only God provides.  I pray knowing personally the One to whom I speak when I say, "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name!"  I know the One who designed apes, human beings, wrists, and knees.  God is my Father, and if you were to trace back my family line it would reach all the way back to Adam - not to some beast.  Jesus is the One who introduced me to real love, and that's the absolute truth.