Tag: eternity

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Miracles

Daily Reading

Acts 16-17

Daily Thought

Jail became common to the disciples, and outcomes were unpredictable; Herod killed James, an angel rescued Peter (see Acts 12:1-7). So, when Paul and Silas were thrown into prison, it was not surprising to find them praying deep into the night. But if you think they were praying for themselves, you’d be wrong.

The jailer had strict orders “to keep them safely” (Acts 16:23), but an earthquake struck, releasing their bonds and opening the gates of their cells. If they were praying for a miracle, this was it! The jailer knew it, too, and “he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped” (Acts 16:27). Instead, Paul and Silas had remained in their cell. They traded their safety for the jailer’s salvation and convinced the other prisoners to remain, as well. When the jailer saw this, he asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 

While sitting in jail, their future in doubt, the prayers of Paul and Silas were not for the safety of themselves, but the salvation of others, and the jailer “was baptized at once, he and all his family” (Acts 16:33). That was the real miracle.

Daily Prayer

Heavenly Father, my time is not as important as someone’s eternity, my safety not as important as their salvation. May my prayers and my priorities reflect the values of heaven and may my life point others to my Lord. 

I trust you with all my life and that changes my attitude about everything and everyone. Teach me to love others more, to live boldly, to share freely, to serve like my Savior.

Amen

Daily Question

What kind of things do you pray for that have to do with today and what kind of things have to do with eternity?

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Where Is Wisdom?

Daily Reading

Job 24-28

Daily Thought

Job challenges his friends, “Where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding?” (Job 28:12). Certainly not among you three is at least half the answer. The friends have knowledge, but knowledge is not wisdom, and often the more a fool knows, the greater a fool he is. Knowledge is indiscriminate, wild and promiscuous, flirting with whomever fancies it; but what of wisdom? That is Job’s question.

“I hold fast my righteousness and will not let it go; my heart does not reproach me for any of my days” (Job 27:6). Job is resolute in his devotion to God, but (as Job points out) the wicked “live, reach old age, and grow mighty in power” (Job 21:7); and they seem to get away with it (read Job 24). Why then turn from evil? And, thus, where is the benefit in wisdom?

It is in suffering Job uncovers God’s wisdom, the place of understanding, “This is the portion of a wicked man with God, and the heritage that oppressors receive from the Almighty: If his children are multiplied, it is for the sword” (Job 27:13-14). The length of life on earth is of no consequence to a Holy God. Justice will have its say in the end, “for what is the hope of the godless when God cuts him off, when God takes away his life” (Job 27:8). The number of years lived in time are of no matter, for the wicked to live long and grow mighty is only to increase evil and the Judge of eternity is righteous.

Stripped of all he has, Job discovered all he needs, “and it is not found in the land of the living” (Job 28:13), in all or anything life offers. Wisdom is found in devotion to the righteous and eternal Holy God of heaven.  

“Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom,
     and to turn away from evil is understanding.” ~Job 28:28

Daily Prayer

To the only wise God, our Savior, be glory, majesty, dominion, and power, both now and forever, may I live a life devoted to and delighting in You. Everything else is a gift, and You are the giver of all that is good and worthwhile. I will seek You because You are God and You are true and You are good. It’s the wise thing to do.

I want to know You more to know You better. I see the wonder of Your ways in the world. You created the heavens and oceans, the gardens and grandeur, and all that breathes. There is this marvelous world, beyond our corruption, looking forward to redemption and restoration, freed from evil, filled with wisdom, for Your glory and our pleasure throughout eternity. Beyond my dreams, what more could I hope for?

Amen

Daily Question

Can you be evil and successful?

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Two Fires

Daily Reading

Job 17-20

Daily Thought

T.S. Eliot wrote,

The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre-
To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Two kinds of fire. One consuming. We name it “despair.” This fire burns out into emptiness. Another fire purifies. This is “hope.” This fire burns on, it burns eternal. We have a memory of eternity. God put it in our hearts, but it was buried deep by sin. It is a hope now hidden. We live today in the tangible moment, consumed in pleasure and power and passion. But moments don’t last.

These are the two fires: one momentary, consuming. The other eternal, unseen.

Job discovered that hope is a gift found in suffering. Wrestling with despair, he suddenly explodes, “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth!!” (Job 19:25). He had opened the gift. In the middle of a fire that was consuming him, he found the fire that saves.

T.S. Eliot’s epitaph, his own words, “In my beginning is my end. …In my end is my beginning.” Apart from Jesus, all of life points at an ending. A bad one, actually. Despair. Open the gift of salvation, the end is no longer ominous, but the beginning of eternity. “My redeemer lives! I know it!!”

Daily Prayer

My Father, my Creator, my Sustainer, my Ever-Present Help in Time of Trouble, my Joy, my Life, my Passion, my Love. May the desire for you consume me.

I seek first your kingdom, your way of life, your righteousness. I have confidence that everything else is best placed in your hands.

Thank you for your Son, Jesus Christ, my Savior, my Hope.

Amen

Daily Question

If you know you will live in eternity, how does that change the way you live today?

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Is That All There Is?

Daily Reading

Job 14-16

Daily Thought

Job fought hopelessness from his seat in the ashes, a poem of pain. Describing life as a withering flower or a shadow that fades (Job 14:2), he asked is it only that life is hard and then you die? The question is as modern as it is old. Peggy Lee asked it in song back in the sixties, “Is That All There Is?” Jack Nicholson settled for “As Good as It Gets.” Bugs Bunny reminded us every Saturday morning, “That’s All, Folks!” 

But Job persisted, and his questions were as deep as his sorrow and suffering. His friends continued asking (and answering), “Why?” as if an explanation would bring peace, but Job looked to hope, “If a man dies, shall he live again?” (Job 14:2). We die before we are dead when hope is lost. The answer is long in coming and it will not be why, but who, because it’s not a solution that’s needed, but a Savior.

Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.” ~John 11:21, 25-27

That’s all there is and it’s everything we need.

Daily Prayer

Eternal God, you are the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. The End and the Beginning. Your ways are pure, You are holy and true, a firm foundation. You do not change with the wind, but I do. When I do not trust in You with all my heart, when I do life my way, when I forget You, I lose my way.

Thank You for sending Your Word, written, which lights my path. Thank You for sending Your Word, living, Your Son, Jesus Christ, the way, the truth, and the life. May I walk this life with You for the few years I have. Then a bigger and better journey begins!

Amen

Daily Question

What is the most important thing you are living for?

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Happily Ever After

Daily Reading

2Kings 23-25

Daily Thought

A siege is slow relentless death, and, in the original Hebrew, the fall of Jerusalem is told in one long methodical twelve-verse sentence, 2Kings 25:1-12. (The translation into English adds periods to ease the read.) “The ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month” stretches “till the eleventh year of King Zedekiah, on the ninth day of the fourth month” and in eighteen months all is done. The wall is breached, the Chaldean army rushes in, and the last king of Judah is chased into the plains of Jericho, the same place where it all began when Joshua fought the battle of Jericho and the people shouted and the trumpets blew and the walls came tumbling down (Joshua 6).

There is no emotion in this account. God’s prophet Jeremiah weeps over the fall of Jerusalem in his book of Lamentations, but here in 2Kings is the dispassionate voice of a court reporter recounting the execution of judgment. Judah had her good kings, but not enough, and the country is judged for the whole of her sins. Josiah’s reign (2Kings 22-23) had been a brief righteous reprieve, but he was followed by Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin and Zedekiah and a nation cannot endure evil upon evil upon evil. So Judah was taken into exile out of its land (2Kings 25:21). “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 3:23) for nations, as well as for you and me. 

The story seems over, but this is only the end of a chapter, not the book. This is God’s story, not ours, and a new King will come to Israel and the world, and time will change from B.C. to A.D. Death does not end the reign of this righteous Lord and Savior; rather, Jesus conquers death and rises in victory because, at last, the throne belongs to the eternal King of kings and Lord of lords. Fairy tales are not the only stories that end with “and they lived happily ever after,” because fairy tales are shadows of the real story, and this is the story of God–“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

Daily Prayer

My God, You are righteous and good and holy and just. I am not. Created in Your image, I chose my own way rather than yours, and my sin led to judgment and that judgment is death. There was such hopelessness in life without You. Thank You for rescuing me, for delivering me from death, returning me to hope, and giving me a life that overflows with Your love.

May my thankfulness be evident in a life changed by Your love. May I walk in Your truth, full of grace, sharing Your goodness by word and deed with all who cross my path. May I seek opportunities to share Your love in the same way You sought me. Thank You for so great a salvation, such a wonderful Savior.

Amen

Daily Question

Where is God found in the story of your life?

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Death Can Wait

Daily Reading

Mark 4-5

Daily Thought

The daughter of Jairus is at death’s door. “Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and seeing Jesus, he fell at his feet and implored him earnestly, saying, ‘My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live’” (Mark 5:22-23), What an opportunity, to save the daughter of a prestigious man. This would do much to advance the mission of Jesus. You would think. “And he went with him. And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him” (Mark 5:24).

Then, from the crowd, a woman (we don’t even get her name) “came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment” (Mark 5:27), and she was made well. For twelve years she had a bleeding illness no doctor could cure, but one touch healed her. And Jesus stopped. Jairus and his daughter and death would have to wait. “And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my garments?’” (Mark 5:30). 

“Everybody!” thought the disciples. “You are in a crowd. Hurry up Jesus. You have to get to the home of Jairus. This is important,” but the immediate is never more important than the eternal. “The woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. And he said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease’” (Mark 5:33-34). Jairus’s was not the only daughter who needed the touch of Jesus.

While Jesus is not hurrying, while he is taking valuable time to talk to this woman–who is already healed, by the way–the news Jairus feared arrives: “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?” (Mark 5:35). 

But the limits we place on God are not God’s limits. 

“Overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, ‘Do not fear, only believe.’” ~Mark 5:36

A little girl on the edge of death seemed to be what was urgent, but Jesus was interrupted by a woman. Death could wait while Jesus paused to heal this woman, but death did not wait and the little girl died. No matter, the King of kings is the Lord of life. “Little girl, I say to you, arise” (Mark 5:42), and she did.

Daily Prayer

My Great God, what an amazing story, Your Son born a baby to Mary. No earthly father, but a Heavenly Father, a poor family, peasant shepherds announcing His birth, a Friend of sinners and outcasts, and yet Jesus is King of kings and the Lord of lords. Big things come in small packages.

You came humbly and changed the world. You defeated all enemies, including the last enemy – death. You have established an eternal kingdom of peace and declared the good news of salvation. I’m listening and believing, and my life has been changed forever. Thank You, my God and Savior.

Amen

Daily Question

Is your schedule organized more by what is important or what is urgent? What’s the difference?

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Hungry Rats

Daily Reading

Hosea 8-14

Daily Thought

“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” ~Hosea 11:1

God recalls his love and care for Israel, rescuing them from slavery, feeding them in the wilderness, leading them to a land he specially prepared for them. And yet “when they had grazed, they became full, they were filled, and their heart became proud; therefore they forgot me” (Hosea 13:6). To the fat and happy, beware.

I was pre-med for a year, before I discovered my powerful dislike for biology. I did have fun with rats, though, doing experiments in the lab. I learned that if you want to teach a rat something, it better be hungry. It is the “90 percent rule.” Feed a rat, weigh it, then diet it down 10 percent. Hungry rats solve mazes faster, click pedals to get food more often, and generally behave better than when they are satisfied. If they are not hungry, they are not that eager to learn.

“Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied.” ~Luke 6:21

Israel had much to learn. When Mick Jagger wails, “I can’t get no satisfaction,” it is a good thing. It is the soul seeking more, beyond the here and now, for the here and now cannot satisfy. We are made for so much more. Said the Preacher of Ecclesiastes, “he has put eternity into man’s heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

“For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.” ~Hebrews 13:14 

All of life is lived on the edge of eternity.

Daily Prayer

Father God, May I be satisfied in Your love, and unsatisfied with anything less. You created me to live in a close relationship with You. May I hunger, starve even, when I neglect to nurture and feed that relationship. God, keep me forever eager to grow in the knowledge and love of You. May I live always in the light of eternity.

Amen

Daily Question

What are your deepest needs and desires?

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Heavenly Minded

Daily Reading

Ecclesiastes 9-12

Daily Thought

The preacher of Ecclesiastes wishes to say that “wisdom is better than might” (Ecclesiastes 9:16), and it is, but truth is most powerful of all, and all must bow to it. Of a life lived under the sun, without reference to God, the truth asserts itself, and the preacher ends with what he began, “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; all is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2; 12:8). If this seems dismal, blame truth–“the Preacher sought to find words of delight, and uprightly he wrote words of truth” (Ecclesiastes 12:10). There is no turning from truth; it cannot be avoided.

Life under the sun is all we see, but it is not all there is, and thus the preacher’s purpose in his somber words is to lift the eyes of our youth to see what cannot be seen, to what is above and beyond the sun, to our Creator. Some are criticized as being so heavenly minded they are no earthly good, but the truth is we tend to be so earthly minded we are no heavenly good. This is a message best learned young, to dash our hopes early of ever finding meaning in the pleasures and pursuits of this life; “the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all” (Ecclesiastes 9:11). Do not live for the moment, rather live beyond the sun, each moment for eternity.

Daily Prayer

God of eternity, unseen but more real than all I can put my hands on in this world, strengthen my faith. May I live in wisdom and truth. May all my days reflect all of Yours. 

My life is full of hope because of You. The more I live, the more I know what is truly important, and it is what I have but who I know. It is people and it is You. To love You and to love others, may that consume me, because that is forever. Everything is is chasing after the wind.

Amen

Daily Question

What do you do now that has value for all eternity?

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A Better Idea

Daily Reading

Ecclesiastes 1-4

Daily Thought

Remember the 1960’s jingle, “Ford has a better idea”? Actually, we all have a better idea–at least we think so–and that is the point of Ecclesiastes. We all want to eat, drink, and be merry (Ecclesiastes 2:24, sort of), and we think we know how; and, in a way, we do know how, and therein is the problem. We eat and drink and work and play to fill a void and find meaning, and if that is all we do, it is a poor substitute for what God has in store for us. What we do turns out to be empty, meaninglessness, vanity, “vanity of vanities! All is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2). Our better ideas bring instant, but not enduring, gratification–no wonder or beauty, which is what God has in mind for us.

We live for the moment, for the immediate, life “under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:3), life without regard to God; yet God has put eternity in our heart (Ecclesiastes 3:11) and so we miss him in the moment. God has established a time for everything; a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, build up, weep, laugh, mourn, dance, cast away stones and gather them again; a time to embrace and refrain, seek and lose, keep and cast away; to tear, to sew, to keep silence, to speak, to love, to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace (Ecclesiastes 3:2-8).

Perhaps the most difficult, but the most vital of all of God’s commands is “Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him” (Psalm 37:7), for “he has made everything beautiful in its time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11), not ours. God has a better idea.

Daily Prayer

My God, I desire to live a life not focused on pleasure, but on purpose; not for now, but for forever. God, thank You for placing eternity in my heart, for creating me in Your image with Your delights and Your desires. May I always live for You.

Teach me patience and endurance, to wait on Your plans, to endure hardship and suffering, and to discover Your joy and the beauty of Your ways.

Amen

Daily Question

What is the purpose of your life?

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And They Lived Happily Ever After

Daily Reading

Revelation 17-19

Daily Thought

“Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!
She has become a dwelling place for demons.” ~Revelation 18:2

Babylon is the last battle and Satan’s last stand, and as God’s wrath finishes its destruction, all the people who had placed all their hope in this world watch the smoke rise, “Alas, alas, for the great city that was clothed in fine linen, in purple and scarlet, adorned with gold, with jewels, and with pearls! For in a single hour all this wealth has been laid waste” (Revelation 18:16-17). The great city was Babylon, representing the commerce and culture of this world, and the Bible calls her “the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality” (Revelation 19:2). She is rightly destroyed, for none is less welcome at a wedding than the prostitute, and it is time now for the marriage supper of the Lamb.

“Hallelujah! For the Lord our God
the Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his Bride has made herself ready. ~Revelation 19:6-7

The Lamb is Jesus Christ and his bride is the church. She has purchased her gown, but rather than Babylonian purple and scarlet, her fine linen is heavenly, “bright and pure, for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints” (Revelation 19:8). The world began with a wedding, “a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). God called it very good. Now, as one world ends, there is a new beginning and another wedding, and it is even better and forever.

“And they lived happily ever after” is no mere fairy tale ending, but the promise of God to those who enter his Story.

Daily Prayer

My God Eternal, You have given me a glimpse of the future and it fills me with anticipation–a world pure and good, filled with Your love and holiness. I live now in preparation for an everlasting Kingdom with Your Son on the throne reigning in righteousness.

May my life reflect now what is to come, displaying the goodness and godliness of eternity with You, and may it attract others to believe in You and enter Your story, full of grace and truth.

Amen