Eschatology has never gripped me. In my simple faith, I know Jesus will return. When He does, He will defeat evil and save all those who are His. If this happens during my lifetime, great, if not, I will go to be with the Lord when I die. Either way, because Jesus is my Lord, I am saved.
I also believe that should the great deceiver come during my earthly life, staying in God’s Word and cultivating my relationship with God –Father, Son and Holy Spirit- will be my best defense against being deceived. Those same ‘faith-n-life’ characteristics will help me weather any storm in life, so I try to build them into my life anyway…
The closing words of the chapter walked me into my daily meditations… May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word (16-17).
I pondered the Father and Son encouraging me. Is that not a wonderful reversal of the way things so often work in the world? The greatest One, encouraging a ‘nobody’, but that is the way of God. God loves me, knows me and encourages me (and you) so that we stay the course and find ourselves strengthened for whatever the day brings. It is Romans 8 in action… God will see us through to the end and even more so, God will encourage us and strengthen us so that we make it to the end…
Now that is a thought worth dwelling upon this and every day. Amen!
Lord, God, I look again at some of the words of that sentence… You love us, Your grace eternally encourages us, You pour hope into us… Wow what a blessed person I am! What a blessed people Your people are! Alleluia, our God reigns! And our God guarantees our inheritance.
Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord, most high… Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment