A human hand appears in the middle of King Belshazzar’s great banquet and it writes a message on the wall.

This would definitely get my attention.

And this is where we get the saying, ‘ I can read the writing on the wall’.  Many of us don’t know that this comes from the Bible.

King Belshazzar could not read the handwriting on the wall so he consulted with Daniel who was well-known for being able to interpret things when no one else could.

Daniel read the writing on the wall and told the king that God was bringing his reign to an end because the king had not acknowledged God as sovereign over all the kingdoms on earth.

That very night, the message on the wall was fulfilled and Belshazzar was killed.

One part of the message on the wall was ‘Tekel’ which means you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.

The bad news for all of us is – our scales don’t look any better.  Our rebellion.  Our need for control.  Our self-centeredness.  Our busyness which causes us to ignore God – not have enough time for him.

The writing on our wall would have the same message…..

except for the fact that God loved us so much that he gave us an ‘out’.

He sent his perfect son, Jesus, to save us from the eternal separation from God which we have earned.  The entire Bible is a love story about how God created us in his image and desires to have a close, personal relationship with us.

God offers a gift of grace to each one of us which we first have to accept in order to get the scales moved in our favor.

Through Christ’s sacrifice, we can become precious children of God who are never ‘found wanting’ because Jesus did it all for us….

for all time.

It is finished.

Thank you, Jesus.