pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: eternal


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New Hope

Reading: Isaiah 65: 17-25

In Isaiah’s words we hear of a future with hope.  For those he lived amongst, they needed to hear words of hope.  At times in our lives, we too need to be reminded of the hope that rests in our faith.  The Israelites had plenty of trials and despair during the fall of Jerusalem and their time of exile.  Isaiah has plenty to say about this.  Life will also bring us times when we feel like we are being crushed and when we feel like we are living out in the wilderness.  In these times, Isaiah’s words speak to us as well.

In our world we certainly have death and hunger and injustice and violence and many other things that bring pain and heartache.  Perhaps you are in the midst of this pain right now.  Into this pain and heartache, God reminds us that all of these things are passing away.  God does not promise to take away the trials and sufferings that are a part of this life.  God instead tells us of the coming of a new heaven and earth.  God tells of the time that draws ever nearer when there will be no more pain or tears or hurt.  God gives us the ultimate hope in life eternal, a life that awaits all who call on God as our only hope.

Our passage today begins with “Behold”.  It is a word full of hope and promise.  Another story begins with this word: “Behold, the Lamb of God”.  This too is a story full of hope and promise.  And this is the story of hope and promise in the here and now.  In Jesus, we find one who walks with us in the midst of all life brings, one who will carry us if that is what we need.  In Jesus, we find comfort and strength in our time of need.  In Jesus, we find the compassion and love to offer comfort to others in their time of need.  In Jesus we also find the grace and forgiveness we need to make us new again when it was we who brought the pain and separation upon ourselves.  Jesus us our present hope that enables us to live towards and into the promise of a new heaven and earth.  May we hold tightly to Jesus Christ as we live with hope filled anticipation for our eternal future that is sure to come.  It is God’s promise.


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Faithful

Reading: 2 Timothy 2: 8-15

Paul accepts his physical reality but lives into his eternal reality.  He is a prisoner in chains, suffering in the way because of his faith.  He could fall into despair or depression.  He could as easily just give up.  He could blame God for the circumstances he finds himself in.  Paul does not do any of these things.  In fact, he willingly accepts the situation and simply continues to do all he can for God so that others “may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus”.  God always comes first for Paul, is always the focus.

At times we too are so filled with God that our surroundings or the little obstacles that come up aren’t even speed bumps to our completing what God has laid upon our hearts.  We are full steam ahead in our work for God.  The work is meaningful and impactful and lives are being changed.  We look ahead, eager to continue to do the work of faith, ready for whatever God brings next.  I often experience this scenario after a mission trip or after an event such as a rally where God touches lives and new believers are ‘on fire’ for God.

But I am not Paul.  I return and soon enough everyday matters – work, family, chores, … – demand my attention.  They are good and worthy matters and deserve my attention, but they consume my time and drain my enthusiasm for that next thing that God has in store.  I fall into the routine of everyday life and that ‘full steam ahead’ feeling is lost.  It is in this mode of life that the speed bumps can feel like mountains.  Yet God is faithful.  If I am willing and if I keep my eyes open and my heart sensitive, God always leads me to the next opportunity to serve or to meet a need or to help someone come to know Jesus Christ.  God is faithful.  God will use us over and over and over again if we are faithful and obedient.  Lord, make me faithful and obedient always.  Lord, use me.


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The Good Fight

Reading: 1 Timothy 6: 11-19

A good life can be defined at least two ways.  For one, a good life is security, routine or order, a sense of success or accomplishment.  To have a safe home, ample food and clothing, a steady job that brings satisfaction, and good relationships with family and friends – to many this is the good life.  For others, for those who know God, a good life entails all of this and more.  For the believer, a good life is also a life lived for God, sharing God’s love and compassion with others.

In our passage, Paul is encouraging Timothy to be content in life and not to chase after the ever elusive”more”.  Paul encourages Timothy to pursue the things of God: righteousness, godliness, faith, love, gentleness, and endurance.  Paul knows Timothy will need all of these things.  Some will help Timothy to continue to grow in his faith while these same characteristics and the others will help him to share his faith with others.  A good life not only includes a relationship with God but also with the community of believers and with the stranger one meets.  Paul reminds Timothy to “fight the good fight of the faith”.  He goes on to tell Timothy to take hold of the confession of Jesus as Lord and Savior and to fully live this out in his own life.  Paul calls on Timothy to live faithfully, to shine the light of Jesus with all he meets as he proclaims the good news and as he personally pursues God.

We too can take these words of encouragement to heart.  We too can choose to claim our relationship with our Lord and Savior, with Jesus Christ.  And we too can fight the good fight of the faith, loving God and loving others with all that we are.  It is in doing these things that we take hold of eternal life – the life really worth living.  This day and every day may we fight the good fight of the faith, bringing honor and glory to God in all we do.


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New Creation 

Reading: Colossians 3: 1-11

Paul calls for a transformation from our old self that is of the world into a new self that is made in Christ’s image.  To accomplish this change we need the help of the Holy Spirit.  We cannot make this transition on our own.  It can be something we desire and even something we feel led to, but the power to transform human lives into eternal lives rests in God’s hands alone.

God’s love and grace are always reaching out to us, ever seeking to draw us closer to that love and grace.  We are born with an innate sense of God and good in us, with a spark of the divine, so to speak.  As we naturally see God’s love in the world, we do so through the spark of the divine that is within all humanity.

Early on life, God’s grace begins working in our lives.  John Wesley would call this prevenient grace, the grace that comes before.  It’s that grace on the doorstep of our life, inviting us into a relationship with God.  As we step through that door and begin to grow in our faith, this grace becomes justifying grace – that grace that helps us see the world as God sees it and to live our lives by God’s ways and will.  As we mature in our faith, God’s sanctifying grace begins to work in our lives, drawing us ever closer to Jesus, ever closer to perfection.  Although we never reach perfection in our earthly bodies, it is ever the goal.

To accomplish all this, Paul calls us to “put to death” all that is inside of us that does not draw us closer to God.  It is emotions, desires, drives, idols, friends, places, habits, … all that stands between us and God.  It is through faith in God and through the power of the Holy Spirit working in our lives that we continue on our journey of faith, step by step, ever drawing closer to our Lord.  May God strengthen us all on our journey.


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Forever…

Reading: Psalm 30: 6-12

God rescued David and his grateful response is to praise God and give Him thanks forever.  Forever is a very long time.  It really far exceeds anything we can grasp.  When we say ‘forever’ we are making a pretty big commitment.  Although our concept of forever is limited, sometimes it is the word that best expresses what we feel at the time.  Perhaps the best example of this are the wedding vows that speak of forever.  For the couple standing there, so deeply in love, forever expresses it best.

Sometimes, though, we use forever in a promise to try and leverage God.  We pray, “If you will ___ God, I’ll ___ forever”.  We pray the ” If only…” prayers with a promise tied to forever.  But even in these instances, we use forever to try and sum up just how much we want the answer we want.  It is a word we use to try and demonstrate our great commitment to whatever we are praying for or about.

God also uses forever.  God promises to love us forever.  Underlying this promise and His other promises is an understanding on God’s part of how long this really is.  God promises to forgive our sins and mistakes forever.  In spite of His knowledge of who we are, His promise is still to forever, without any limits.  God promises to be with us forever.  He was and is and will always be.  Through the constant presence of the Holy Spirit, God  abides with us forever in this life.  Lastly, God promises us forever.  Once we accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, God promises us the gift of eternal life.  We begin this life here and now but it will continue on forever even when we leave these earthly tents.  For these promises, we offer our grateful praise forever.


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In Prayer

When we go to God in prayer, we do so with no guarantees.  We bring to God the desires of our hearts and our hopes for friends, family, and the world.  Often we pray for a certain situation or for some conflict to be resolved.  But sometimes, when we are in a season of personal discontent, we do not know what to pray for.  We sense some imbalance or uneasiness in our lives, but we cannot quite put our finger on it.  So we pray for things like guidance, direction, wisdom, discernment.

Usually when we pray, we pray with a certain hoped for answer in mind.  We pray for someone who is sick and we hope for healing.  We pray for someone who needs work and we hope for a job.  We pray for someone who is in a struggling relationship and we hope for reconciliation.  Even when we are in a season of discontent, most of the time when we pray we do so with an idea of what we would like the answer to be.

Funny thing about prayer though – it is God who answers our prayer, not us.  His  vision for our life and our world is so much bigger than our limited view.  His vision and plan for us and our world is focused on an eternal ending.  We often struggle to see with this lens.  But sometimes we do see an answer to a prayer or we begin to understand how God is at work in the midst of it all.  This is a holy privilege.

At times our prayers are also affirming and uplifting.  Like God’s response to Jesus’ prayer after His baptism in today’s passage, at times we too sense God’s presence, love, and affirmation.  We can almost hear Him saying ‘well done’.  We sense a guiding hand or we are blessed with affirmations that encourage us to continue to walk the path that God has placed us on.  In prayer we connect to God and He connects to us.  May we pray often.

Scripture reference: Luke 3: 21-22


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Past, Current, and Future

After a period of silence, Zechariah can again speak.  Filled with the Holy Spirit he begins to share a prophecy about his son John.  In his prophecy he connects the past and the future.  Zechariah begins by recalling God’s mighty acts in the past.  He tells of God’s redeeming acts, of the prophets God sent to guide and lead the people, and of God’s rescue of the people from their enemies.  Zechariah ties all of these acts into the old covenant.

In remembering God’s mighty acts Zechariah reminds the people and us of who God is.  He reminds them and us of God’s faithfulness by recalling all of the ways that God has shown love to His people.  Zechariah is building up the base knowledge so that it can be the foundation of the future.  It is reassuring and it provides hope for the future.  It reminds the people and us of who we are in God.

In Advent we wait with longing and expectation for the coming of Christ.  There is definitely a future aspect to Advent, yet it is also rooted in the past.  Our current and future hope rests upon Jesus.  It is surely built upon the foundation of what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross.  His free gift of eternal life and the unending forgiveness of our sins provides our hope and lays out our future.  Because of His great love we can now live free from captivity to sin.

Our future and our eternity is also with Jesus.  We live here and now looking forward to and longing for the moment we see Jesus face to face.  This day and every day we live fully in His promises and also awaiting the fulfillment of His promised return.  Our foundation is sure in Jesus.  Our day today is secure in His hands. Our future rests with Jesus as well.  Thanks be to God.

Scripture reference: Luke 1: 67-75


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Offering the Gift

After His resurrection, Jesus entered heaven.  As the unblemished One, He sits at God’s side.  In that role He “appears for us in God’s presence”.  The crucified Son offers His self-giving love on our behalf to bring us forgiveness of our sins.  His death on the cross was a ‘once-for-all’ sacrifice.

God is holy, pure, truth.  Sin is far from God.  God could not even look upon His own Son on the cross as Jesus bore the sins of the world.  And God is love.  Out of His love for Jesus and for us, the crucified Christ was made the risen Christ.  He passed through death and into eternal life, providing a means for us to do the same.  Through this ultimate act of self-giving, sacrificial love, Jesus opened the gates of heaven wide.

In doing this, however, Jesus did not remove sin from this world.  Sin is a part of our human condition.  It must remain so if we are to be able to choose Jesus.  And choose we must.  Believing cannot be forced.  Faith is an act of our free will.  In order to walk the path that Jesus set as our example, we must have the ability to exercise our will and to daily choose this path.  This is necessary to offer ourselves in sacrificial, other-centered service to others.  If it were forced it would not be sacrificial or self-giving.  Just as with Jesus Christ, there is a cost.  We give of ourselves to serve another.

The gift Jesus gave on the cross and as He entered heaven is a great gift.  This day, may I offer what I can of this gift to all I meet, as Christ lives and shines in me.

Scripture reference: Hebrews 9: 24-28


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Here, But…

It is not always easy to keep an eye on the eternal promises of God.  In the big picture we ‘get it’ – our real eternity rests with God and all the saints.  Yet at times we too get bogged down and lost in the day to day struggles we all face.

Sometimes though, it can feel like a millstone has been tied around our neck.  The uphill battle against a disease or illness, the sudden loss of a job or spouse or friend, another life change you never saw coming…  When it is more that the day to day troubles, which can be hard and very real too, it can be hard to remember God’s eternal promises.

All is not forever lost.  God suddenly pokes into our hard time and we are reminded of His great love.  Maybe it is through a friend or in a time of prayer or study or in a moment of solitude where He makes His presence known.  Like Paul we are reminded that these hardships are just temporary.  God’s plans will far outlive all of these earthly trials. What Christ offered on the cross has an eternal purpose and we are a part of that.

When we spend time daily with God, we experience the promise of being renewed day by day.  When we fix our eyes on the unseen, on our faith, we gain a sense of the eternal. When we remember that our earthly bodies are just temporary and we live for our eternal home built by God, we come to know our true reality.  We are here but not of this world.  Thanks be to God.

Scripture reference: 2 Corinthians 4:16 to 5:1


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Perspective

Perspective is an important thing.  As followers of Christ, we believe He will return one day to bring final judgment.  It could be today, next week, or in two thousand years.  From this perspective we live each day prepared for this to be the day.  In a sense we live with one eye always on heaven and our eternity.

Yet we must also keep today in perspective.  We cannot live detached from this world as we await the next.  Even if our lives in this world, though we may live to be hundred, are just a flash in the spectrum of eternity, each day still matters.  Each person and encounter is an opportunity to be Christ’s light and love.  Each is a chance to affect someone else’s eternity.

In the here and now it is our relationships that matter most.  Our relationship with Jesus Christ takes priority because it does reflect and impact the eternal.  And all of our present relationships are also important as each person is a child of God and has worth.  Each person – from our family members to the person we meet on the sidewalk – matters.

How we choose to live in each moment does impact our eternity.  All the choices, decisions, and actions play a role, as does the lack of action…  As we go through our day today, may our eyes be open, may our hearts be willing, and may our ears be sensitive to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Scripture reference: 1 Corinthians 7: 29-31