The wicked life is a short one.

This weekend (for those of you who attended True North) we all heard Bobby speak yet another fantastic message, and it reached me deeply. Though all his messages do that, this particular one hit a personal soft spot of mine. The strongest points that jumped out to me were that God will judge the wicked, and that nearness to God is your good.

First off, God will judge the wicked. After I heard this message and really thought it over, I came to the conclusion that nearness to God comes from being with his people on a daily basis, and worshipping him in your alone time. In other words, constant relations with God, and his people. A verse we looked at frequently in Teen Ministers a few weeks back was
2 Corinthians 6:14:

"Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?"

We were asked what we thought this verse meant, and most of us came to the same conclusion that we have to spend more time with Christians than non-Christians. Which applies to Bobby's message on being near to God quite well. You can't be near to God if you're involved with the wicked and the evil, unless you're evangelizing to them that is...and even then, it should be a short time at that.

I once knew first hand what the complete opposite of being close to God was, and it wasn't a good place. At all. Psalm 73:14 says :

"All day long I have been plagued; I have been punished every morning."

I knew what that felt like, every single day that I was away from God. I was living my life for ME instead of God, and I was plagued by the fact that I knew who God was, and that He was the right answer but I still didn't do anything to better myself. I was a "Lost Sheep" . I finally faced the fact that I needed God, and if I didn't come back to Him, I would die wicked, and be judged for it.

Surely, the wicked will be punished. We all know this to be true, one day God will judge everyone. The holy and righteous will enter God's kingdom and worship the Lord in happiness for all of eternity. Yet, the wicked, will be cast into the lake of fire, and burn forever and ever; A second death more horrible than the first. As I said earlier, I used to know the wicked life, and as Bobby said this weekend "Do not be deceived by the wicked", I obviously had been, and now I see the faults I had made. One big one in particular...

Which leads me to my second point. Nearness to God. At the end of both of Bobby's sermons this weekend, he had us break up into groups and pray about what we learned from the message. My main point, that I wanted to share was that you can't come near to God without being with his people. Romans 12:5 :

"In Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others."

That verse, and the one I mentioned earlier about not being yoked with non-Christians clearly shows us that God's spirit dwells with His people.
The feeling I feel now, when I'm with my Christian friends, is indescribable compared to the feelings I had when I was a wicked person. I can attest to the power of being with God's people and how it truly is good, and that it really is the key to being close to Him.

I want to close with Bobby's last point of the weekend: "View nearness to God as your good", that line couldn't be more perfect. Good only comes from being close to God, everything else is sin and will perish at the end of this short life we have on earth.

The wicked life is a short one.