The Key That's Right In Front Of You

Now it is always a good idea to lock your luggage when you're flying commercially. It's especially a good idea if you're going out of the country. It's an even better idea if you know where the keys for your suitcase locks are before you lock them! Well, I was packing in a rush for my flight to Mexico recently, and I had my padlocks ready to go - I couldn't find the keys, however. Now with only minutes left before I had to leave we launched this all out desperate search. We checked drawers we thought we'd seen them in - no keys. We looked in creative places - no keys! So I was resigned to leaving with unlocked suitcases when I zipped my garment bag shut and found the keys. Someone had been wise enough to attach them to the zipper that we use the lock on . . . right on the suitcase. What I had been looking for everywhere, had been right in front of me all along!

Well, I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want have A WORD WITH YOU today about THE KEY THAT'S RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU.

Now in a sense our whole life is a search for a key. A key that will answer some of life's bottom line questions - Why am I on this planet? How can I find love that I won't lose? A relationship that I can totally trust? How can I get some lasting peace? What happens after I die? Well, like this guy with a lock that had no key, we look a lot of places for answers. It may be that your inner search is taking you through a series of relationships, some good, some bad. . . or down a variety of spiritual roads trying various approaches to God. . . or maybe through some successes that were supposed to quiet your heart. But they never did. May I suggested that maybe the key you've been looking for has been right in front of you, all along, on a road so familiar, so accessible, that you've missed it.

Our word for today from the Word of God will take you right there. Now you'll have to climb a hill with me, it's called skull hill - that's outside the city of Jerusalem - and there you will find the one and only Son of God battered and bleeding on a Roman cross. We are going to take our place next to a Roman officer, in fact he's the man personally in charge of the execution of Jesus Christ. He's a tough, hardened executioner. He's about to speak, you need to hear what he is saying. Mark 15:39 - "And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard His cry and saw how He died, he said, 'Surely this was the Son of God!'" The executioner! This is the Son of God! He didn't believe that when he came there that day, but he leaves there believing that. What changed his heart? Well, it says, "he saw how He died." He heard him say, "Father, forgive them." And he knew He was forgiving those who were responsible for his death. The centurion said, "Man that's me he's forgiving." Well, I know that it was me too. . .

The Bible says that He carried our sins in His own body on the tree. See the One you and I have sinned against stands ready to forgive every sin that we have ever committed. He died to do that.

And then this officer heard Jesus say, "Today you will be with Me in Paradise." To a thief on the cross next to Him. You see, this Jesus has the power to take us to Heaven with Him. It's ultimate peace to know that on the day your heart beats for the last time, Jesus is going to say to you, "Today you will be with Me in Paradise." Your search ends at the cross of Jesus. That cross where God's Son died for you is the place where you will finally find God, finally find peace, find unloseable love . . . you'll finally find Eternal Life and this could be your day to stand at His cross and know you belong to Him. It's been a long, long search hasn't it? It doesn't have to be any longer. When the Savior on that cross becomes your personal Savior, you have found the key that unlocks it all.

If you would like to know more about what it means to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, or if you want to know for sure that you belong to Him...

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