pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: eternal


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Imperishable.

Reading: 1 Peter 1: 17-23

Verses 18-19: It was not with perishable things such as gold or silver that you were redeemed… but with the prescious blood of Christ.

Today’s text plays with the contrast between the perishable and the imperishable.  Peter calls us to pursue the imperishable and to strive for the things of God.  This is in contrast to the world’s view of what matters and what is worthy of our efforts.  Peter encourages the believers to set aside the ways passed down by their fathers and to not follow in pursuing an “empty way of life”.  The chasing after the gold and silver leads to emptiness.  This is a lesson we all eventually learn.  To be rich in things most often leaves one pour in the soul.  At some point all people look in the mirror and come to realize that money and things and status do not bring true happiness.  Living a full life cannot rest on the perishable but must instead be founded on the imperishable.

Peter calls on Christians to “live your lives as strangers in reverant fear”.  To live as strangers means to live not of this world and its cares.  Another phrase that parallels this idea is “in the world but not of the world”.  Our true citizenship is in heaven.  To have ‘reverant fear’ is to have holy respect for God.  It is to be aware that the world’s choices lead to death and destruction.

This passage reminds us that we were bought with the precious blood of Jesus Christ.  This sacrifice made in love calls us to love our brothers and sisters with a deep and sincere love.  Jesus demonstrated what this love looks like and He calls us to follow after Him and to love like He loved.  Verses 18 and 19 capture this love: “It was not with perishable things such as gold or silver that you were redeemed… but with the prescious blood of Christ”.  The blood and love that made it flow so that you and I can be redeemed are imperishable.  This love of God that was poured out on the cross can never be lost.  There is nothing we can do to find ourselves outside of God’s love.  Nothing.  This is why God is our only hope in this world.  This is why God alone provides for our salvation.  He is our eternity.  It is not founded on our fickle love for God but upon God’s unfailing love for us.  It is a gift far more precious than any gold or silver and it is far more enduring.  For the imperishable love of God that we have in Jesus Christ, this day let us offer our praise and thanksgiving.


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Good News

Acts 2: 14a and 36-41

Verse 41: About 3,000 were added to their number that day.

Peter opens this section of scripture with these words: “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Savior”.  Peter speaks with authority and power that comes from two things: he has personally seen the risen Christ and the Holy Spirit now dwells within him.  Those gathered around him must have perked up and paid attention.  They all knew the facts of Jesus’ life and His crucifixion.  They also must sense both the unquestionable truth of Peter’s words and the guilt they feel over what has happened to Jesus.  They are ‘cut to the heart’ and ask Peter and friends, “Brothers, what shall we do”?  Although the Holy Spirit has not yet come to dwell in them, they are certainly feeling the conviction of the Spirit.

Peter responds with an altar call.  He says step up, admit and repent of your sins, and be baptized into the name of Jesus Christ.  Again the people respond to the nudge of God.  We too live with this nudge guiding us.  At times the Holy Spirit leads, at times it whispers, at times it convicts, and at times it nudges.  In all of these ways, the Holy Spirit propmts us to action.  When we are faithful, like the 3,000 in today’s passage, then God responds.  God gives the people the forgiveness of sins and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.  This is the essence of the good news.

The same good news exists today.  God still pursues mankind with a love that is unquenchable and undeniable.  It is a love that is offered to one and all.  It is offered equally to sinners and to saints.  No matter where we are on the sinner-saint continuum, may we each realize and accept the good news this day: God loves us, Jesus saves us.  All we have to do is profess Jesus as Lord and we receive the gift of eternal life and the daily presence of the Spirit.  Thanks be to God for this wonderful and incredible gift.


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Living and Eternal Hope

Reading: 1 Peter 1: 3-9

Verses 4 and 5: In His great mercy, God has given us new birth into a living hope… and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade.

This short passage has so much power.  Peter opens by praising God and then jumps right in to explain why.  In verses four and five Peter writes, “In His great mercy, God has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade – kept in heaven for you”.  Our hope is a hope not only for eternal life, but also for a living hope in our life here on earth.  Yes, the gift of the resurrection is a wonderful promise.  But our time with God in the eternal will be a time of no more tears, no more pain, …  If there was ever a time when we needed hope, it is in the realities of this world.

After reassuring us of God’s power shielding us, Peter does acknowledge that this life will bring testing.  He writes that we may have to “suffer griefs in all kinds of trials”.  Yes, even though we have faith and even though God shields our gift of salvation, yes, this life will bring trials.  Just as the rain falls on the just and the unjust, so too do trials and “life” come to all peoples.  But there is a great difference in the affect of the trails.  Those without faith get through; they endure until the trial passes and emotions dull.  The believer, on the other hand, has a trusted and loving companion to walk beside us.  God brings us peace and comfort and strength in the trial.  God walks with us and in the end leads us to rejoice as our faith has grown, has been refined; this leads us to praise the God who is faithful and is a real presence in our time of need.

Our experience with God deepens our faith.  As Peter writes, “though you have not seen Him, you love Him”.  It is true that we do not physically see God, but we do tangibly experience God and His presence in Spirit.  This is what fills us with an “inexpressible and glorious joy”.  Peter returns to the eternal as this section draws to a close.  He reminds us that we are receiving the salvation of our souls as well.  For both of these gifts – presence now and hope in the life to come – we shout thanks be to God!!  To Him be all the glory and power, both now and forevermore.


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Resurrection Faith

Reading: Acts 2: 29-32

Verse 32: God has raised Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact.

God had promised David that one from his line would rule forever.  In the world where kings come and go, where power struggles are a real threat, this promise required a great deal of faith to believe.  Even in David’s reign, there were several who tried to sieze power from him.  So to hold onto this promise too a great deal of faith.  David had such a faith.  He held onto his absolute trust in God.  Forever is a long time, but there was an unshakable trust that David had in God.

For Peter, his faith had been shaken.  He has just been restored from the denial of knowing Christ.  He has been anointed the “Rock” upon which the church will be built.  But Peter has had those days when doubt and fear has crept in, just as David had and just as we do.  No human being is immune to doubt and fear and anxiety and worry.  For Peter, in those days after Jesus died, there must have been huge doubts.  But the resurrection came and his doubts about Christ were washed away.  But after the resurrection, there must have been great fear… – he had denied the Lord three times.  And Jesus restores him from this too.  Peter was beginning to see through new eyes.  He was beginning to see with eyes full of hope and faith.  He realized that God had been at work all along.  This too is the faith that David lived within.  It is the faith we are called to live in too.

Just as David had seen the eternity of the Messiah, Peter now understood God’s will for all of creation: forgiveness of sin and life eternal.  These are God’s gifts​.  Through the cross, Jesus defeated the power of sin.  Through the grave, Jesus defeated the power of death.  God’s will is to offer these gifts to all who call on Christ as Lord and Savior.  Once we do this and place our hope and trust in Him, we too will understand what Peter knew.  Christ came to save the world and will come again to restore all of creation.  It is God’s gift to you and to me, to all of creation.  May we, like David and Peter, claim this gift, this inheritance, and begin to live out our resurrection faith each day.  Verse 32 reads, “God has raised Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact”.  May we live as witnesses today!


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See the Glory

Reading: John 11: 1-15 & 38-45

Verse 40: Christ said, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”

In this story about death, the focus is on what Jesus can do for Lazarus and for us.  Although it is Mary and Martha that call for Jesus and it is they who are given the gift of having their brother back, it is Lazarus for whom the significant change has been made.  He was deaf and now lives again.  As the story unfolds and Jesus delays, it is clear that there is more to the story than simply healing or even raising Lazarus from the dead.

God’s plan encompasses all that are present that day to comfort Mary and Martha, the disciples who have come along, and us, the readers.  To see someone walk out of the grave after being dead for four days was a powerful testament to Jesus’ control over all things.  Reading about it thereafter is also a powerful testimony to what Jesus can do in our lives today.  For the people present it was a great showing of the glory of God.  For readers past and present, it reveals that the power of Jesus is not limited by anything – certainly not death.  In the story today, we also gain the understanding that death is not to be feared.

Jesus continues to offer us victory over death.  We will be transformed after we draw our last earthly breath, yes.  In this story and in Jesus’ words “I am the way, the truth, and the life” and “I am the resurrection and the life” we gain an understanding and confidence that death here is not the end but is simply the beginning of our eternal life.

Jesus’ words to Martha ring out to us as well: “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God”?  May we hold fast to the faith we profess, rejoicing in the time when we too will see the glory of God.


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Breath and Hope

Reading: Ezekiel 37: 1-14

Verse 14: I will put my Spirit in you and you will live.

Ezekiel is living amongst and speaking to a people living in exile.  They were carried off long ago and feel as if they have been living in exile forever.  The people of Israel cry out, “Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off”.  There is great sadness in these verses.  It is very difficult to live without hope.

As Ezekiel prophesies, the scattered bones come together as tendon, flesh, and skin covers them.  They are capable of having life now but there is no breath in them.  They are flesh and bone, but that is all.  At this point they represent Israel in exile.  Living but not truly having life can also represent many we know ourselves.  Yes, they are physically alive – they go to work, spend time with their families and friends, maybe even play on your softball team.  But they only know earthly life; they do not know or live for anything outside of the here and now.

For the Israelites in exile, life has become about simply surviving in the day to day.  They are barely getting by.  They feel ‘cut off completely’ from God and all they knew back home.  It is hard to live without hope and they are fast losing hope.  God instructs Ezekiel to prophesy that the breath of God enter the dry bones and flesh so that they would have life.  Ezekiel does this and a vast army arises.  This is the vision Ezekiel brings back to the people living in exile, to a people fast losing hope.  In this, the people know that God has heard their cry and that He will respond.  It brings much needed hope to the nation of Israel.

In a very similar way, we too can offer hope to those we know who are alive but only in the earthly sense.  We too can share the hope that comes when one lives with Jesus as Lord and Savior.  We too can share the joy that comes when the Spirit of God enters our hearts and brings us each the hope of eternal life.  May we each seek to be spreaders of the Word of God to those living in exile, so that they too may know abundant life in Christ in this place and eternal life with Him in the life to come.


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Human Yet All-Powerful

Reading: John 11: 1-45

Verses 25a and 26 – I am the resurrection and the life… whoever lives and believes in me will never die.

Today’s passage reveals many aspects of who Jesus is.  In each stage of the story, our understanding of Jesus deepens.

In the beginning of the story, we see a Jesus who is intimately connected to human beings.  He did not just dwell here but was connected in human relationships as well.  He is in ministry doing God’s will far away yet these two sisters send for Jesus to come attend to a personal need – their brother and one of Jesus’ close friends is very sick.  These ladies are good friends of Jesus and think nothing of asking Him to drop whatever He is doing to respond to their plea for help.  This connection is again reinforced in verses 35 and 36, where Jesus weeps and those there note how He loved these friends.  Jesus was intimately connected to His good personal friends.

What happens next may at first appear to contradict this.  Jesus does not go right to Bethany.  He stays where He is.  He even reveals after two days that now they can go because Lazarus has died.  Jesus plainly tells the disciples that Lazarus had to die so that all can see Jesus’ glory and can come to believe.  Jesus is acutely aware of the end game.  It must have been hard for the human side of Jesus to allow the grief and pain to come upon His dear friends.  After all, He could have healed Lazarus from afar, from right where He was.  Yet Jesus knew God’s plan and was obedient to it.  Jesus knew that in the miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead, God’s glory would be revealed and the faith of many would be strengthened and others would come to believe too.  In case this part of the story, we see how Jesus sometimes allows those He loves to walk through the valleys for the purposes of strengthening one’s faith or to help one find faith.  He loves us that much.

As the story unfolds, we see the Jesus who can do anything.  He raises Lazarus from the grave even though he has been dead for four days.  He tells Martha (and us) why: “I am the resurrection and the life… whoever lives and believes in me will never die”.  He is this for us too.  As our journey of faith unfolds, Jesus comes to live more and more in our hearts as our belief in Him grows.  Our human yet all-powerful friend, Jesus, leads us to eternal life as well.  For this great gift of God that we have in Jesus, we say thanks be to God!


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Controlled by God

Reading: Romans 8: 6-11

Verse 6: The mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace.

Paul establishes an either/or situation in today’s reading.  Either we are controlled by the Spirit or we are controlled by the flesh.  Either we submit to God’s ways or we pursue our sinful nature.  Either we are alive as Christ dwells in us or we are destined for death.  Either we are filled with God’s peace or we are hostile to God.  Paul is drawing some clear distinctions.

For Paul, being a part of God’s family was a universal invitation.  He did not see any limitations on who could live in covenant relationship with God.  It was not by birth that one gains access.  This remains true today – some born into a “Christian home” never find a faith of their own and others raised in a secular home come to a deep faith.  Paul also saw no barriers in regards to race or ethnicity or nationality or status or anything else one could name.  We also see this today.  Jesus’ mandate to “make disciples of all people of all nations” has brought the gospel all around the world.

There are many, many people today who are active participants in fulfilling the great commission of Jesus.  While some are in far away places bringing the Word of God to every tribe and tongue, most of us operate in a much smaller, more local context.  While our prayers may go far and wide for the work of the church universal, our actions and words most often impact those close at hand.  Those affected can be family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, classmates, and even strangers.

When our “mind is controlled by the Spirit”, we exhibit a life of peace and love and hope.  When we are filled with the Spirit, our lives are different than those whose live by the flesh.  We do not chase after the things of the world because the Spirit helps us and leads us to trust in and to rest in God.  We live life longing for and trusting in an eternal time when we will forever dwell in the light and love of Christ.  The day to day of this life is small change.  We are not held captive to but are set free from the power of sin and death that so easily entangles the world.  We follow God’s ways and offer love and hope and peace to the world.  This day may our lives be a living testimony to the power and presence of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit within us, drawing others into the kingdom of God.


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One Man

Reading: Romans 5: 12-19

In today’s reading, we have the first Adam and the second Adam, Jesus Christ.  In both Adam and Christ we are all connected together.  By all, I mean all people – not just Christians.  The choices that Adam and Jesus made affects all people, not just believers.

Adam chose to sin and through that sin death entered the world.  In this one act of disobedience, Adam brought death to humanity.  We will all one day die as a part of this earthly existence.  Whether or not you believe in God or in Jesus, one day death will come.  Death comes not just to our human bodies.  Sin also brings death to our relationships, to our dreams, to our connection to God.  All of humanity shares in these realities.  Adam’s choice brought sin into the world.  In turn, sin brings condemnation and death.

Christ made a different choice.  Christ’s choice was also made by one man, but in obedience to God.  Through Christ’s decision, true life entered the world.  It is not the earthly life we now experience but the glimpse of eternal life that all who call on Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior will one day experience.  Verse nineteen reads, “Through the obedience of the one man many will be made righteous”.  Jesus, in His obedience, paid the price of our sin and instead of condemnation, God now offers us justification.  Through the body and blood of Jesus, we can be made whole again, righteous in God’s sight, because Jesus washes away our sins.

Just as Adam’s choice affected all of humanity, so too does Christ’s choice.  We also know from Romans that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ.  We know from all four Gospels that Jesus always operated from the place of love.  Jesus’ love was extended to all people – to tax collectors, to prostitutes, to Pharisees, to lepers, to any and all who came to Him.  In the same way, Jesus offers eternal life to us all.  To me, a sinner.  To you, a sinner.  To all.  It is a free gift, generously given to one and to all.  Thank you Lord Jesus for this amazing love.


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Light, Salvation, Stronghold

Reading: Psalm 27: 1 and 4-6

The Psalm opens with three great descriptors of God: light, salvation, stronghold.  God is all of these things to the psalmist and to us.  The writer, in response to this realization, asks, “whom shall I fear?” and “of whom shall I be afraid”?  When we are living with God as our light, salvation, and stronghold, the same is true for us: we have nothing to fear and no one to be afraid of.

God is our light.  The lights casts away darkness.  In God’s presence, evil and the powers of darkness flee.  Light also reveals.  God’s light reveals things we need to change and areas where we need to grow.  Light shows us the way.  God’s light guides us on the path that He desires we walk in life.

God is our salvation.  Out of God’s love for us, Jesus put on flesh and dwelled among us.  In doing so, Jesus revealed more of God’s nature to us and also set an example for how we are to love God and to love neighbor.  All of this is wonderful, but still falls short of salvation.  We must confess our sins and profess that Jesus is Lord of our lives.  Until we declare this, Jesus is just a nice guy who lived a really nice life.  Once we submit to Jesus’ reign in our lives, then we are saved and know salvation.  In order to make this possible, Jesus chose the cross.  Jesus sacrificed Himself for the forgiveness of our sins.  It is only through this forgiveness that we are cleansed and made righteous again before God.  It is through this loving act that we can repent of and confess our sins every time we fail.  Then we are made right and can again enter into a pure and holy relationship with our God.  We are cleansed by the blood of the Lamb and saved for salvation through Jesus Christ.

God is our stronghold.  Once we walk in the light and know the mercy and love of God, then nothing can defeat us – not temptation, not sin, not disease, not even death.  God’s power and presence are our stronghold no matter what the world or Satan throws against us.  There will be trials and struggles and temptations, but God’s light shines through them, giving us strength and hope and promise.  Knowing our eternity is secure in God, the things of this world are not so terrible or frightening.  God will have the last word.  All of this helps when we are in the valleys.  It is here that our greatest help comes from God.  God walks with us in the valleys, even carrying us when that is what we need.  It is when we need God most that God takes us into His arms and becomes our stronghold.

God is our light, salvation, and stronghold.  Thanks be to God.