No soup for you!
Every now and then on a Sunday, we go to the soup bus for the homeless. We lend a hand where possible, chat with a homeless person here, a smile there, a small piece of humanity in a rather complicated world.
However, there is one hard and rigid rule at the soup bus: do you drink alcohol while you are there? No soup for you. And that rule is a VERY strict one. Is someone caught drinking while there? Then his bowl of soup is gone, and that person is sent away. Directly, in no uncertain terms, everyone sees and hears it.
Its very simple: if you have money for alcohol, you also have money to buy your own food. We’re not going to give you free food, so you can pay for your booze, get drunk and get yourself into even more trouble. We’re not participating in that. Simple and fair, right?
But now a step further…. we see and hear a lot of people praying to God. God help me! But if we look a little further…. What else do they do with or for God? Nothing. They don’t listen to what He asks them to do, they don’t do what He tells them to do, even worse, they do things that God really hates… and yet… they keep asking… God help me! In all honesty… what do we sometimes think as humans? Why will God help you if you don’t do anything for Him and even worse… curse His name in word or in deed?
“For what is the hope of the godless when he is cut off, when God requires his life? Will God hear his cry when distress comes upon him?”
Job 27:8,9
The choice is simple: do you want soup? Come to the soup bus and stop drinking alcohol and the bad behavior that comes with it. Do you want God to help you? Go to God and stop your sinful behavior. Now.
And we’re not there yet..here comes the amazing news…. in all honesty… we so often don’t listen to God as humans, so often make a huge mess out of it… we (rightly) deserve punishment for that, but God doesn’t give us what we deserve…. that punishment….
He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, So great is His loving kindness toward those who fear Him.
Psalm 103:10
We have a merciful God, who is willing to forgive you for all the times you have not listened to Him…that is grace…..wow. Come to Him… He gave you another day to do so… and we don’t know if tomorrow there will be another day…
