What is our hope? It is the parousia, the coming of the Lord. What is our hope? That we shall see him as he is. What is our hope? That when we see him, we shall be made like him and shall remain with him forever. This is the Christian's great hope.
The people of Israel enjoyed a certain rest when they received their portion of land in Canaan, but the rest Christ gives us has nothing to do with real estate. Paul spoke of this greater rest: "I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far" (Phil. 1:23). So the farewell message of Joshua son of Nun to us is this: "Look not to me, but to the greater Joshua, Jesus Christ. He is the Lord of salvation, and he will give you the true rest of heaven." The future rest for believers is eternal glory and everlasting bliss. It is living in the house of the Lord and seeing him face to face. It is joy unspeakable and full of glory. It is life with Christ forever. (emphasis mine)
The man then identified himself in response to Joshua's inquiry, "Are you for us or for our enemies?" "Neither," he replied, "but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come." What is the significance of such an answer? It indicates that Jesus Christ cannot be recruited. He is God Himself. He is Savior and Judge. He does not answer to us; we answer to him. We may not enlist God for our projects, but he may enlist us in his. Yet how many people come up with their own ideas and then ask God to bless them! Let us avoid reductionism, reducing God into someone who will cooperate with our plans, someone we can control. He is the commander, and we must surrender to him. We may want to adjust his word, but we cannot. This King of kings requires our complete surrender. In this surrender lies our salvation.
Crossing an overflowing river was not what the people would have chosen for themselves. But when we walk with the Lord, we do not have to worry about the unforeseen difficulties we will face. We can have confidence that they are appointed by God, and that he wants to take us through them to make us spiritually strong. The way may be new to us, but it is not new to God, and we can be assured that God, who has been faithful to us in the past, will be faithful to us in the future.This word is encouraging to me. The past year has been a tumultuous time for us. We experienced tremendous joy at the birth of our sons. However, intermixed with this joy was a heavy dose of anxiety. Jonathan stayed in the NICU for 12 days. Matthew stayed at Children's Hospital for 5 days. Since their release, weight gain has been slow and not exactly steady. My heart sank as my beautiful babies were labeled Failure to Thrive at six months of age. (Numerous blood tests were conducted, all of which came back normal.) The saga continues and, in the next few weeks, they will be evaluated for developmental delays. OUCH! I certainly did not choose to travel this route. Yet, I know that the Lord marked out this path for me. I do not fully understand why I have to go this way, but I know that God is faithful and this is all part of His plan to strengthen me spiritually.
Second, we must realize that true riches consist in relationships. Our relationship with the Lord, the relationship between a husband and wife, the relationship of parents and children, our relationship with our brothers and sisters--these are the treasures of life.One of the things that I remember hearing P.G. Mathew say often is, "Life is relationship." Because of some things happening with some members of my family, I have been realizing the profound truth of these words. So much individualism abounds in our culture. We get caught up in the busyness of our own lives and walk through life with tunnel vision. We are focused--focused on ourselves and our own agenda. We think we don't have time to read our Bibles and pray. We think we don't have time to nurture our relationship with our spouses. We think we don't have time to play with our children. And we certainly don't have time to call Betsy Sue! After all, we're BUSY!
The God of Israel is the Creator of heaven and earth. Faith is reasonable when we realize who our God is. All enemies shall fall dead before him. Jesus said the gates of hell will not prevail against the church that he builds. All obstacles shall be removed when God moves. He delivers us from the city of destruction and leads us forward to the city of God. He defeats all of our enemies, because our enemies are his enemies. Therefore, do not be afraid, but believe in our triumphant God and go forward.
Genesis 6:8 told us that "Noah found favor [grace] in the eyes of the LORD." All are born sinners and practice sin, and Noah was no exception. But Noah found grace and it was the basis for his righteousness. Noah was not justified by his obedient work of building the ark. He was saved by grace--unmerited favor. He, like us, merited hell and eternal death, but God freely gave him heaven and eternal life. That is what grace is all about.
Faith provides a firm ground to stand on while we await the fulfillment of God's promises. By faith we can be sure that all of God's promises to us will be fulfilled. Faith is assurance in the present. It gives the object hoped for a present power in the soul as if it were already possessed. Faith gives us a vision of things future. It is like a telescope that enables us to see distant objects and be energized by that sight to live our lives in the present. Paul says, "We live by faith, not by sight" (2 Cor. 5:7). By faith we see spiritual realities now and deal with the present in the light of that reality.
As members of the family of God, we love both our Father and his children. When people are in love, they want to be with each other. Nothing can keep lovers apart. They think up ways to be together. Love knows no obstacles. It is the same in the family of God. We come from far and wide to worship and have fellowship with the people of God. We know each other's needs and take care of them. When one member suffers, we all suffer; when one rejoices, we all rejoice. We think up ways to spur one another on to love. Love is evident everywhere--a love that translates into deeds done to help God's people. We spend our time, talents, and money to help others, especially the household of God.
The ultimate cause of our salvation is the Father's will, which the Son fulfilled by the sacrifice of himself on the cross. Freely and willingly, unlike brute animals, Jesus loved the church and gave himself for her. The sinless Son of God, our great high priest, offered himself as the perfect offering as our substitute. We will not experience even an infinitesimally small part of God's wrath; he suffered it all in our place.
Perseverance clearly doesn't mean that we will never fail; it means that when we do fail, we should seek the Lord's promised forgiveness, learn from our failures, and persevere anyways...[Peter] did not succumb to discouragement; he did not abandon the faith; and he did not repeat the same mistakes over and over. He learned from each mistake and thus drew strength even from his failures.
There is no shortcut to Christlike character. If virtue could be instantly ours through some sort of passive, instantaneous, supernatural faith experience, Peter would have urged us to seek that experience. He doesn't. He commands diligence and describes a process of gradual sanctification whereby we are increasingly conformed to the image of Christ as we exercise diligence in the cultivation of personal virtues.
That's the way the Christian life is supposed to be, as we are gradually changed 'from glory to glory' (2 Corinthians 3:18). Don't be frustrated with the process. Embrace it and be diligent to see it through to the end.
Let us rejoice because of this great gospel. It is a feast of good things. Let us come to eat and drink, praise and rejoice in the presence of our God and Savior. He gives us a good conscience (Heb 9:14), knowledge of God (Heb 8:11), the guarantee of salvation (Heb 7:22), victory over Satan and our fear of death (Heb 2:14-15), and confidence that when our time to die comes, we will go into his very presence. Our high priest, Jesus Christ, is at the right hand of God interceding for us effectually and continually (Heb 7:25).
When I started in ministry, I committed myself to expository preaching, just explaining the Bible, because I knew that there was nothing I could say that was anywhere near as important as what God had to say. The real goal of ministry has always been to keep my own opinions out of it as much as possible. I never want to be guilty of giving people the illusion that they have heard from God when in fact they have only heard from me. When I step into the pulpit, the expectation is that I’m a messenger of God. I speak on His behalf, not my own.
I have thought, I am a creature of a day, passing through life as an arrow through the air. I am a spirit come from God, and returning to God: Just hovering over the great gulf; till, a few moments hence, I am no more seen; I drop into an unchangeable eternity! I want to know one thing, — the way to heaven; how to land safe on that happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach the way: For this very end he came from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. O give me that book! At any price, give me the book of God! I have it: Here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be homo unius libri. [A man of one book.] Here then I am, far from the busy ways of men. I sit down alone: Only God is here. In his presence I open, I read his book; for this end, to find the way to heaven.
