Biopsis.
What does the Bible say about your future? The gospels predict times of wars, floods, famines, pestilence and desolating woes in uncertain times in which we live. It is a time of great turmoil. Our lives are full of fluctuation and change. The world seems always teetering on some financial, environmental, or international disaster etc. War erupts across the planet. It is a time when everything seems to be unravelling, and we ourselves are becoming undone.
But, there's hope! We're not talking about the hope made in promises by politicians, which we learn by the end of the day are empty and meaningless platitudes. We're not talking about the religious clap trap that everything's okay leaving us high and dry. No, we're talking about REAL hope. The hope that only Jesus Christ can bring. He wrote the playbook for all of human history. He tells us how it will all turn out. He lets us know that the future is bright... if we make the right decisions. Jesus tells us there's still hope.
The glow and fervour are gone. It is not enough to know our God intellectually, we must know Him experientially, we must ‘taste and see that the Lord is good.’
We are to remember from where we have fallen, repent and do the first works. ‘Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.’ James 4:8. We are commanded to forsake those sins that so closely cling to us and so easily beset us. See Heb. 12:1. The work of the gospel is a dual work of first detaching from sin and then attaching to Christ.
The gospels predict times of wars, floods, famines, pestilence and desolating woes in these most uncertain times in which we live. It is a time of tremendous turmoil. Our lives are full of fluctuation, threats, and change. The world seems always teetering on some financial, environmental, or international disasters, etc. It is the time for cataclysmic desolations.
This is the hope that only Jesus Christ can bring. He wrote the book for all of human history. He tells us how it will all turn out. He lets us know that the future is bright, only if we make the right decisions is there hope.
Our God has great plans for our life here and an infinite life spent in paradise for eternal ages spent in absolute bliss.
Find out just what that hope is. Hope is to - "to look forward to with desire and reasonable confidence" in the future.
Our God has great plans for our life here and an infinite life spent in paradise for eternal ages spent in absolute bliss. It is the good news of the gospel and how to search and find God that gives such hope. ‘For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.’ Jeremiah 29:11.
Many, so many Christians are content to serve God, do what they consider is their level best in the Christian life, and yet fail to really touch the Master, Jesus Christ, with the touch of faith that conveys life, light, and health of soul. What do I mean? Many brush past the Lord touching His robe, there is no real sap of the vine flowing in their souls; there is no real holiness of heart; no faith that works by love; no marriage of the human with the divine - no bonding with the Spirit of Christ that inspires the love of the love chapter in 1 Cor. 14. They are content to serve God without knowing His direct will for their lives; they live on “a fragment of Christ” as Sister Ellen White puts it.
They are mere human moralists without knowing that there is so much more in store for those who are ‘the elect’ or the ‘very elect’ as the Bible puts it. They are not hypocrites, they are the five foolish virgins. They are in church positions, and may even be ministers of the word.
They may be told to count the cost of discipleship yet they feel in places like first world countries where there is peace and religious safety there is no real cost to being a Christian. Life floats along and they are at peace with themselves, instead of warring against the carnal nature, bearing their cross, denying self and even crucifying the lower passions of the body.
Unless they are baptised in the Spirit and thus born again, these no where Christians are floating along quite easily in the Christian life without knowing the depths that divine love has in store for them. They excuse themselves from knowing the Psalm 23 experience where the Shepherd of their souls feeds them, gives them spiritual water of life to drink, and rest of soul that Jesus came to give them. He promises the aid of the Comforter, yet how few claim that promise of the Comforter to come and give them His comfort in answer to their prayer. How few have the fruits of the Spirit, how few realise the actual presence of God in their lives. Their churches are destitute of the deep movings of the Spirit of God.
They are lovers of sinful pleasures more than lovers of God. Ask them to give up their sins and they get offended. They do not realise that sin and God are never in co-partnership. Christ will not reign from a divided heart; He will not rule in a heart that loves and cleaves to its sins. Idols separate them from the good Lord yet they feel they can still serve God and keep their idols - things that are more important than their love of God. And the disturbing thing is they can! They can serve God in church office, administer the sacraments of the cross, and cleave to their sins - in this life, but not in the next! You can be like Judas, hold church office, serve the church, cling to your precious sins but you cannot go to heaven as you are.
The vast majority of the churches are full of good, loyal Christians serving God and the church who will not let go their sins and yet cleave to the Lord. He will, one day, in the last great day of probation spew them out of His mouth. They are lukewarm and insipid to His taste.
What we need is experiential Christianity, where we have indeed tasted of the powers of the earth to come, where we drink in largely of His Spirit, and walk in His commandments obedient to His word. Without this our faith is largely in vain. Don’t be satisfied with anything less than the fullness of God. It is not enough to ‘taste and see that the Lord is good,’ we need to partake of the sap of the vine. Anything short of this is living on a fragment of Christ, and we will find ourselves locked out of the marriage supper of the Lamb.
What does the Bible say about your future? The gospels predict times of wars, floods, famines, pestilence and desolating woes in uncertain times in which we live. It is a time of great turmoil. Our lives are full of fluctuation and change. The world seems always teetering on some financial, environmental, or international disaster etc. War looms across the planet. It is a time when everything seems about to unravel, and we ourselves may become undone.
But, there's hope! We're not talking about the hope made in promises by politicians, which we learn by the end of the day were empty and meaningless. We're not talking about the religious platitudes that everything's ok which leaves us high and dry. No, we're talking about REAL hope. The hope that only Jesus Christ can bring. He wrote the playbook for all of human history. He tells us how it will all turn out. He lets us know that the future is bright... if we make the right decisions. Jesus tells us there's hope.
Find out just what that hope is. Hope - "to look forward to with desire and reasonable confidence"
Our God has great plans for our life here and an infinite life spent in paradise for eternal ages spent in absolute bliss. ‘For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.’ Jeremiah 29:11.