January 4
We desire recognition for our labor—for the work that we do to sustain our families, and we expect to see our career goals advanced as we invest ourselves toward the professional and financial ends we have set for ourselves. We desire to be effective for the Kingdom of Christ and His purposes as we serve to reach men with His truth.
We aspire to the time when nations lay down not only their weapons of warfare but also their animus toward those who are of other kindred and tribes so that the proverbial “swords will be beaten into plowshares,” Isaiah 2:4 and Micah 4:3, and “nations shall no longer train for war.”
Yet we know that in an ultimate sense, we can do nothing and be nothing apart from His hand of blessing upon our endeavors. We understand that it is His good pleasure to allow us to attain recognition for our labors, both in the natural and in the spiritual realms and that apart from the embrace of the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6) by all men, there can be no lasting peace among men.
Jesus wants us to understand that He is the ultimate Source of all we achieve. He stated that reality very clearly in John 15:5 when He said, “I am the vine, you are the branches; without Me, you can do nothing.” Our, efforts to “train up our children in the way they should go,” Proverbs 22:6, to see the advancement of our spiritual and career goals, II Timothy 2:15, our endeavors for world peace—all are dependent upon having the Lord Jesus in our hearts for their ultimate success.
The prophet in Isaiah 26:12 says, “Lord, You establish peace for us; all that we have accomplished, You have done for us.” The veracity of this assertion is absolute and its import is weighty. Isaiah addresses the matter of the environment in which we carry out our endeavors—it must be one of peace if we are to ultimately succeed.
We will be able to accomplish little in an atmosphere of contention and strife. War-torn areas are not noted as springs of great invention or endeavor. Peace produces great gain. Yet beyond an environment in which our labor may thrive is the reality that it is the Lord who gives the increase.
In every goal we set for ourselves, whether personal or professional or international or eternal, He who will not share His glory with another, Isaiah 42:8, affirms that it is indeed HE who enables us to accomplish any worthwhile goal. It is through Him that any endeavor has abiding, worthwhile, temporal or eternal success.
It is Jesus who has allowed the work of our hands to prosper, Deuteronomy 30:9 and Jesus who has given us the opportunity to rule and reign with Him eternally, II Timothy 2:12, Revelation 20:4. No matter who we are or what we accomplish, ultimately it is “Christ who is all and Christ who is in all,” Colossians 3:11.
Saturday, January 4, 2014
Friday, January 3, 2014
His Reward Is In His Hand
January 3
At times we may feel like we’re on a treadmill—forever moving but going nowhere. At times it seems we accomplish nothing—in spite of our best effort. We labor diligently at our job, perform every task to the best of our ability yet find we are overlooked at times of recognition and promotion.
Romantic relationships can dissolve in misunderstanding and distrust. The sense of betrayal that accompanies infidelity in the bond of matrimony can be completely devastating. If we have resolved to “forsake all others and cling only to one” according to Genesis 2:24, we are undone when the one to whom we have pledged ourselves proves to be unfaithful.
We invest our heart in rearing our children but find a ‘generation gap’ has indeed opened between us and our offspring. The words we say to them seem to be misunderstood at best and are sometimes totally tuned out. They don’t hear what we say and they don’t understand our heart’s yearning to bless them with our wisdom and our counsel.
Fast friendships elude us. We extend ourselves to others but there seems to be no reciprocation. We feel afloat in a wide expanse of relational sea and we feel alone. At the times when we perceive ourselves to be lost to all human contact and temporal success, may we remind ourselves that we have One who sees and recognizes our heart.
Jesus knows our labor and He honors all that we endeavor to do for His glory. While mere men may use us to gratify themselves and abandon us when we’ve served their selfish purposes, we may know with certainty that Jesus “will never fail or forsake us,” Hebrews 13:5. We may know that as we walk with Him and share our knowledge of Him with others, it will be His good pleasure to ultimately, “give us the Kingdom,” Luke 12:32. He does not want us to fear life’s circumstances or people’s inconsistencies. He wants us to trust fully in the Father’s good promise.
Ecclesiastes is 3:13 says, “Everyone may eat and drink and find satisfaction in all his toil. This is the gift of God.” It the Lord’s will that we achieve a sense of accomplishment and its accompanying satisfaction for our effort. If it appears no one else sees or cares, may we take joy in the knowledge that the ultimate Judge of all men’s hearts and labors has perfect insight and "His reward is in His hand," Isaiah 40:10, Revelation 22:12. Nothing we do for Jesus is without purpose. Nothing we do for Jesus is without its eternal reward.
At times we may feel like we’re on a treadmill—forever moving but going nowhere. At times it seems we accomplish nothing—in spite of our best effort. We labor diligently at our job, perform every task to the best of our ability yet find we are overlooked at times of recognition and promotion.
Romantic relationships can dissolve in misunderstanding and distrust. The sense of betrayal that accompanies infidelity in the bond of matrimony can be completely devastating. If we have resolved to “forsake all others and cling only to one” according to Genesis 2:24, we are undone when the one to whom we have pledged ourselves proves to be unfaithful.
We invest our heart in rearing our children but find a ‘generation gap’ has indeed opened between us and our offspring. The words we say to them seem to be misunderstood at best and are sometimes totally tuned out. They don’t hear what we say and they don’t understand our heart’s yearning to bless them with our wisdom and our counsel.
Fast friendships elude us. We extend ourselves to others but there seems to be no reciprocation. We feel afloat in a wide expanse of relational sea and we feel alone. At the times when we perceive ourselves to be lost to all human contact and temporal success, may we remind ourselves that we have One who sees and recognizes our heart.
Jesus knows our labor and He honors all that we endeavor to do for His glory. While mere men may use us to gratify themselves and abandon us when we’ve served their selfish purposes, we may know with certainty that Jesus “will never fail or forsake us,” Hebrews 13:5. We may know that as we walk with Him and share our knowledge of Him with others, it will be His good pleasure to ultimately, “give us the Kingdom,” Luke 12:32. He does not want us to fear life’s circumstances or people’s inconsistencies. He wants us to trust fully in the Father’s good promise.
Ecclesiastes is 3:13 says, “Everyone may eat and drink and find satisfaction in all his toil. This is the gift of God.” It the Lord’s will that we achieve a sense of accomplishment and its accompanying satisfaction for our effort. If it appears no one else sees or cares, may we take joy in the knowledge that the ultimate Judge of all men’s hearts and labors has perfect insight and "His reward is in His hand," Isaiah 40:10, Revelation 22:12. Nothing we do for Jesus is without purpose. Nothing we do for Jesus is without its eternal reward.
Thursday, January 2, 2014
Press Toward The Prize
January 2
Man is called to press on. Jesus sets men free from sin and shame in order that they might accomplish two goals: 1. attain Heaven as their eternal home, 2. take others with them to Heaven. The first step toward that dual purpose of salvation is, of course, receiving Christ as Savior and Lord. The second, bringing others with us, can be a long and arduous process, but as Paul says in Galatians 6:9, we must not “be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap if we do not give up.”
Unless and until an individual opens his heart to Jesus and invites Him into the throne room of his life and allows Him to be sovereign over his heart and life, he cannot take even the first step toward either of those goals. All the effort expended in the behalf of temporal or spiritual goals are mere exercises in futility until the Lord of all becomes Lord over all of a man.
But the Bible tells us that on the great Day of Judgment there will be those who will protest. We who have an exaggerated sense of our own importance to time or to the Kingdom of God cannot begin to fathom our own unimportance. We cannot grasp the reality that it is our privilege to have the opportunity to gainfully serve our fellow man and to serve our God.
The self-important man will declare, “’Didn’t I cast out demons in Your name? Have I not prophesied and done many wonderful works?’ And Jesus will say, ‘I never knew you.’” Nothing we have done on our own, that is not under the blood of Jesus, can be accrued to our account. But when we have given Him our heart, when we have laid our life at His feet in full surrender to His purposes, He will give us labor to perform in the behalf of His Kingdom. The value of what we accomplish will be in direct relationship to the obedience with which we perform it!
Like Paul, we will say, “I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me…One thing I do: forgetting that which is behind, I strain toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Jesus Christ…” Philippians 3:12-14, 16.
When we have fully surrendered to Jesus and to His eternal purpose, we will spend ourselves in order that the Kingdom of Christ may be furthered among men. We will count our life’s purpose to be the promotion of His purpose—the salvation of souls—and we will press toward that goal all our days.
Man is called to press on. Jesus sets men free from sin and shame in order that they might accomplish two goals: 1. attain Heaven as their eternal home, 2. take others with them to Heaven. The first step toward that dual purpose of salvation is, of course, receiving Christ as Savior and Lord. The second, bringing others with us, can be a long and arduous process, but as Paul says in Galatians 6:9, we must not “be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap if we do not give up.”
Unless and until an individual opens his heart to Jesus and invites Him into the throne room of his life and allows Him to be sovereign over his heart and life, he cannot take even the first step toward either of those goals. All the effort expended in the behalf of temporal or spiritual goals are mere exercises in futility until the Lord of all becomes Lord over all of a man.
But the Bible tells us that on the great Day of Judgment there will be those who will protest. We who have an exaggerated sense of our own importance to time or to the Kingdom of God cannot begin to fathom our own unimportance. We cannot grasp the reality that it is our privilege to have the opportunity to gainfully serve our fellow man and to serve our God.
The self-important man will declare, “’Didn’t I cast out demons in Your name? Have I not prophesied and done many wonderful works?’ And Jesus will say, ‘I never knew you.’” Nothing we have done on our own, that is not under the blood of Jesus, can be accrued to our account. But when we have given Him our heart, when we have laid our life at His feet in full surrender to His purposes, He will give us labor to perform in the behalf of His Kingdom. The value of what we accomplish will be in direct relationship to the obedience with which we perform it!
Like Paul, we will say, “I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me…One thing I do: forgetting that which is behind, I strain toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Jesus Christ…” Philippians 3:12-14, 16.
When we have fully surrendered to Jesus and to His eternal purpose, we will spend ourselves in order that the Kingdom of Christ may be furthered among men. We will count our life’s purpose to be the promotion of His purpose—the salvation of souls—and we will press toward that goal all our days.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
May Our Hearts Love His Appearing
IN TABLES OF THE HEART January, 2014
Much is said of the heart of man. Perhaps the most identifying comment in all of the Word of God regarding the seat of our emotions is that it is deceitful above all things, Jeremiah 17:9. This reality can be seen in interpersonal relationships and in international dealings. Duplicity is in evidence in man’s interaction with man in virtually all his endeavors.
Yet, in II Corinthians 3:3 it says, “You are declared to be the epistle of Christ…written not with ink but with the Spirit of the Living God; not in tables of stone but in fleshy tables of the heart.” This reminds us that the heart of man was created by the Lord for better things than the paltry schemes and machinations of men.
Man’s heart was created to be the abode of the Living Christ and Ephesians 3:17 declares that He reigns there as we give our lives to Him and allow our hearts to be His throne room by the power of His love.
As we embark on a new year, may we allow Jesus to speak to us, to write His heart to us in the tables of our hearts; may we know the power of His Holy Spirit transforming us from the duplicity of men to the honor of the Savior as we seek Him together daily through another new year; as we open our hearts without reservation to His love and to His eternal truth.
January 1
Happy New Year!
Man is forever striving for more, for better. Toward that end, he makes resolutions on each New Year's Day. He will improve himself. He will make wiser food choices so his weight will conform to the prescribed limit of the height/ weight ratio charts. He will monitor his investments more closely. He will…
The list goes on. But as we stand at the threshold of a new year, we see ourselves in that man whose intentions are good. We also know from past years’ abandoned resolutions that our performance of those intentions shall probably fail. We want to attain the best that our potential affords to us, but we trudge along in our rut and remain as we are.
Yet, we do not have to perpetuate the least of ourselves. We do not have to strand ourselves on the Island of the Status Quo. We can, by God’s grace and empowerment be like the Apostle Paul who at the end of his life’s journey could recount in II Timothy 4:7, 8 the faithfulness of the Lord who enabled him to achieve all that was set before him.
In spite of imprisonment, Paul fulfilled his God-ordained destiny. In spite of our hardships, we can say with him, “I have run my race; I have completed my course; I have kept the faith! And now is laid up for me a crown of righteousness that shall never fade away.”
May we be able to go on to say as did Paul that our lives reflect not only our own faith and eternal destiny but like him, may we spend ourselves to assure that others, too, “will love Jesus’ appearing." That we and they may hear those glorious words on that great eternal day, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant; enter thou into the glory of thy Lord,” Matthew 25:21-23.
Much is said of the heart of man. Perhaps the most identifying comment in all of the Word of God regarding the seat of our emotions is that it is deceitful above all things, Jeremiah 17:9. This reality can be seen in interpersonal relationships and in international dealings. Duplicity is in evidence in man’s interaction with man in virtually all his endeavors.
Yet, in II Corinthians 3:3 it says, “You are declared to be the epistle of Christ…written not with ink but with the Spirit of the Living God; not in tables of stone but in fleshy tables of the heart.” This reminds us that the heart of man was created by the Lord for better things than the paltry schemes and machinations of men.
Man’s heart was created to be the abode of the Living Christ and Ephesians 3:17 declares that He reigns there as we give our lives to Him and allow our hearts to be His throne room by the power of His love.
As we embark on a new year, may we allow Jesus to speak to us, to write His heart to us in the tables of our hearts; may we know the power of His Holy Spirit transforming us from the duplicity of men to the honor of the Savior as we seek Him together daily through another new year; as we open our hearts without reservation to His love and to His eternal truth.
January 1
Happy New Year!
Man is forever striving for more, for better. Toward that end, he makes resolutions on each New Year's Day. He will improve himself. He will make wiser food choices so his weight will conform to the prescribed limit of the height/ weight ratio charts. He will monitor his investments more closely. He will…
The list goes on. But as we stand at the threshold of a new year, we see ourselves in that man whose intentions are good. We also know from past years’ abandoned resolutions that our performance of those intentions shall probably fail. We want to attain the best that our potential affords to us, but we trudge along in our rut and remain as we are.
Yet, we do not have to perpetuate the least of ourselves. We do not have to strand ourselves on the Island of the Status Quo. We can, by God’s grace and empowerment be like the Apostle Paul who at the end of his life’s journey could recount in II Timothy 4:7, 8 the faithfulness of the Lord who enabled him to achieve all that was set before him.
In spite of imprisonment, Paul fulfilled his God-ordained destiny. In spite of our hardships, we can say with him, “I have run my race; I have completed my course; I have kept the faith! And now is laid up for me a crown of righteousness that shall never fade away.”
May we be able to go on to say as did Paul that our lives reflect not only our own faith and eternal destiny but like him, may we spend ourselves to assure that others, too, “will love Jesus’ appearing." That we and they may hear those glorious words on that great eternal day, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant; enter thou into the glory of thy Lord,” Matthew 25:21-23.
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Happy New Year!
May the will of the Lord be accomplished fully in your life in the year ahead, even as Jesus surrendered His life to the will of the Father in Luke 22:42.
May the truth of the Lord be boldly proclaimed by the "living epistle of your life" according to II Corinthians 3:2.
May you decrease that Jesus may increase in your life, John 3:30.
May you die to yourself that Christ may be fully alive in you as Acts 17:11 admonishes.
May you fear nothing of time, Matthew 10:28, Luke 12:4, but live in awe the One who holds time in His hand.
May you be "more than a conqueror," Romans 8:37, for the ONE who has conquered death, hell, and the grave, according to the promise of Hosea 13:14 dwells in you!
Walk in the power of WHOSE you are in the year ahead!
May the truth of the Lord be boldly proclaimed by the "living epistle of your life" according to II Corinthians 3:2.
May you decrease that Jesus may increase in your life, John 3:30.
May you die to yourself that Christ may be fully alive in you as Acts 17:11 admonishes.
May you fear nothing of time, Matthew 10:28, Luke 12:4, but live in awe the One who holds time in His hand.
May you be "more than a conqueror," Romans 8:37, for the ONE who has conquered death, hell, and the grave, according to the promise of Hosea 13:14 dwells in you!
Walk in the power of WHOSE you are in the year ahead!
Our Privilege--to Speak the Word
December 31
All the uplifting words from the lips of a gracious man that sweeten life like honey when spoken to the heartbroken or frightened or sorrowful; all the words of wisdom of the Word of God itself when drunk in by the thirsting soul cannot be of any avail until they have done the work that God sent them to do.
In Isaiah 55:11 the Lord says through His prophet, “My word, that goes forth out of My mouth, shall not return to Me void but shall accomplish that which I please and shall prosper in the thing to which I send it.” The Word of God, if received by a man, shall be his salvation. If rejected, it shall be his downfall, his damnation.
The ‘Living Word of God’ is Jesus Himself. In John 1:1,2, the beloved Apostle states clearly, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made.” Jesus was and is the everlasting God who made Heaven and Earth. He is the loving God who gave Himself as the propitiation for all man’s sin.
We who believe that Jesus is the Living Word of God bear a great responsibility to convey the message of salvation, the Truth, the Word, to everyone with whom we have association. Ezekiel 3:18-21 indeed states very emphatically that the believer is required to share God’s truth.
Here the prophet declares clearly, “ When I say to a wicked person, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn them or speak out to dissuade them from their evil ways in order to save their life, that wicked person will die for their sin, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. But if you do warn the wicked person and they do not turn from their wickedness or from their evil, they will die for their sin; but you will have saved yourself.
"Again, when a righteous person turns from their righteousness and does evil, and I put a stumbling block before them, they will die. Since you did not warn them, they will die for their sin. The righteous things that person did will not be remembered, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. But if you do warn the righteous person not to sin and they do not sin, they will surely live because they took warning, and you will have saved yourself.”
Therefore, when we have received the knowledge of Jesus our Savior and Lord, we must pass it along to others. In I Thessalonians 4:1, Paul says, “We ask and encourage you in the Lord Jesus that as you have received from us how you must walk and please God, do so even more.”
Walk and please God and do even more by scattering seeds of the truth of Jesus among everyone you encounter. What is done with God’s truth by the hearer is between the hearer and God, but if the truth goes unspoken by the believer in Christ, the one who professes faith is held accountable by the Lord.
It is our responsibility and our privilege to be bearers of the Word of Life, to be instruments in the hand of God by whom He imparts to the lost the truth that enables them to be found; to sow seeds of life among them so they might be born again from the realm of time where death is inevitable into the realm of faith in Christ where eternal life reigns.
All the uplifting words from the lips of a gracious man that sweeten life like honey when spoken to the heartbroken or frightened or sorrowful; all the words of wisdom of the Word of God itself when drunk in by the thirsting soul cannot be of any avail until they have done the work that God sent them to do.
In Isaiah 55:11 the Lord says through His prophet, “My word, that goes forth out of My mouth, shall not return to Me void but shall accomplish that which I please and shall prosper in the thing to which I send it.” The Word of God, if received by a man, shall be his salvation. If rejected, it shall be his downfall, his damnation.
The ‘Living Word of God’ is Jesus Himself. In John 1:1,2, the beloved Apostle states clearly, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made.” Jesus was and is the everlasting God who made Heaven and Earth. He is the loving God who gave Himself as the propitiation for all man’s sin.
We who believe that Jesus is the Living Word of God bear a great responsibility to convey the message of salvation, the Truth, the Word, to everyone with whom we have association. Ezekiel 3:18-21 indeed states very emphatically that the believer is required to share God’s truth.
Here the prophet declares clearly, “ When I say to a wicked person, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn them or speak out to dissuade them from their evil ways in order to save their life, that wicked person will die for their sin, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. But if you do warn the wicked person and they do not turn from their wickedness or from their evil, they will die for their sin; but you will have saved yourself.
"Again, when a righteous person turns from their righteousness and does evil, and I put a stumbling block before them, they will die. Since you did not warn them, they will die for their sin. The righteous things that person did will not be remembered, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. But if you do warn the righteous person not to sin and they do not sin, they will surely live because they took warning, and you will have saved yourself.”
Therefore, when we have received the knowledge of Jesus our Savior and Lord, we must pass it along to others. In I Thessalonians 4:1, Paul says, “We ask and encourage you in the Lord Jesus that as you have received from us how you must walk and please God, do so even more.”
Walk and please God and do even more by scattering seeds of the truth of Jesus among everyone you encounter. What is done with God’s truth by the hearer is between the hearer and God, but if the truth goes unspoken by the believer in Christ, the one who professes faith is held accountable by the Lord.
It is our responsibility and our privilege to be bearers of the Word of Life, to be instruments in the hand of God by whom He imparts to the lost the truth that enables them to be found; to sow seeds of life among them so they might be born again from the realm of time where death is inevitable into the realm of faith in Christ where eternal life reigns.
Monday, December 30, 2013
Anchored
December 30
In spite of the confidence believers have that God’s promises are ‘yea and amen,’ why then does it sometimes appear that Christians suffer defeat? Why does every believer not always triumph over every foe? Why are the faithful sometimes overcome by things as temporal as failing to attain financial security or undone by matters as weighty as succumbing to disease and death?
Hebrews, Chapter 11, often referred to as ‘The Hall of Faith,’ begins with a glimpse of the explanation. In the first verse it says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” This makes it very clear that true faith holds to the Lord, even when the fruit of faith remains unrealized.
There follows a comprehensive list of the people of God who did not receive the thing for which they prayed. Hebrews 11:39-40 says, “They did not receive what was promised since God had provided something better...” What is that “something better”? After all, what can be better than seeing miracles in response to our prayers?
Jesus doesn’t want us to walk with Him for the loaves and fishes (see Matthew 13:14 and Mark 6:30). When He sojourned among us, there were indeed scores of people who followed everywhere He went. They were captivated by the miraculous things they saw Him do…but they were left untouched by the evidence these signs and wonders affirmed of who He was!
Our Lord does not want believers to pursue after Him for the benefits of being His children. He doesn’t want us to hover near because of what He can do for us—He wants us to follow Him because of what He has done for us! Jesus died on the cross to save us from sin. If He did nothing else in our behalf, that would still be the great, “unspeakable gift” of II Corinthians 9:15, the gift of eternal life, which all those in ‘The Hall of Faith’ received by faith, trusting in the Messiah who was to come.
That “something better” of Hebrews 11:39, 40 is not a gift whose value is recognized fully in the realm of time but whose complete worth can be realized only in eternity! If people of faith sometimes seem to be disadvantaged on earth it is only because the great benefits of our salvation cannot be discovered until we realize them at His eternal throne!
Our confidence, therefore is not in the fleeting treasure of time, not in the meager trappings of temporal power, but in the eternal riches of Heaven and in Heaven’s power which “holds the keys to death and hell and the grave,” Revelation 1:18. Though we may not escape all earthly trials, we are assured we shall never be scathed by the pangs of death and hell!
Because Jesus has conquered death and holds the keys that release us to life eternal, we are, “more than conquerors,” Romans 8:37, in spite of all the things we may face in this life! In that promise, our confidence is surely anchored for time and forever!
In spite of the confidence believers have that God’s promises are ‘yea and amen,’ why then does it sometimes appear that Christians suffer defeat? Why does every believer not always triumph over every foe? Why are the faithful sometimes overcome by things as temporal as failing to attain financial security or undone by matters as weighty as succumbing to disease and death?
Hebrews, Chapter 11, often referred to as ‘The Hall of Faith,’ begins with a glimpse of the explanation. In the first verse it says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” This makes it very clear that true faith holds to the Lord, even when the fruit of faith remains unrealized.
There follows a comprehensive list of the people of God who did not receive the thing for which they prayed. Hebrews 11:39-40 says, “They did not receive what was promised since God had provided something better...” What is that “something better”? After all, what can be better than seeing miracles in response to our prayers?
Jesus doesn’t want us to walk with Him for the loaves and fishes (see Matthew 13:14 and Mark 6:30). When He sojourned among us, there were indeed scores of people who followed everywhere He went. They were captivated by the miraculous things they saw Him do…but they were left untouched by the evidence these signs and wonders affirmed of who He was!
Our Lord does not want believers to pursue after Him for the benefits of being His children. He doesn’t want us to hover near because of what He can do for us—He wants us to follow Him because of what He has done for us! Jesus died on the cross to save us from sin. If He did nothing else in our behalf, that would still be the great, “unspeakable gift” of II Corinthians 9:15, the gift of eternal life, which all those in ‘The Hall of Faith’ received by faith, trusting in the Messiah who was to come.
That “something better” of Hebrews 11:39, 40 is not a gift whose value is recognized fully in the realm of time but whose complete worth can be realized only in eternity! If people of faith sometimes seem to be disadvantaged on earth it is only because the great benefits of our salvation cannot be discovered until we realize them at His eternal throne!
Our confidence, therefore is not in the fleeting treasure of time, not in the meager trappings of temporal power, but in the eternal riches of Heaven and in Heaven’s power which “holds the keys to death and hell and the grave,” Revelation 1:18. Though we may not escape all earthly trials, we are assured we shall never be scathed by the pangs of death and hell!
Because Jesus has conquered death and holds the keys that release us to life eternal, we are, “more than conquerors,” Romans 8:37, in spite of all the things we may face in this life! In that promise, our confidence is surely anchored for time and forever!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)