By Mike Fletcher
Jesus is all about vision.
In John 14:6, one of His classic "I am" statements Jesus said, "I am the way . . . and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
Jesus is the way to God, the road ahead, the road not yet taken. There is great anticipation in those thoughts. We follow the One who defines Himself as vision incarnate, pathway personified and the future mapped. The impact of His self disclosure, "I am," reminiscent of God speaking to Moses at the burning bush, puts an eternal finality to the future, in the present tense, "am" (not "will be"). Just as he said from the cross, "It is finished."
He did it; He accomplished it; and now we can live it, for after all He is "the life," also.
Live today confidently, like you are living a completed reality, a done deal in Him. What a joy to know that not only can Jesus "fill all my vision," as the hymn writer said, but He is my vision: hope expected, hope anticipated and hope eternally realized, today.
It is so easy to lose our perspective on eternity. When that happens, we can't see clearly. Yes, that is a difficult perspective to maintain because of the world we live in. We are bombarded by life around us and we are sinful human beings living in a fallen sinful world.
That is why we need to spend time in God's Word so that we can, as followers of Christ, get a true perspective how to live our life. If we have proper perspective, in accordance with God's Word, we can clearly see and value the things, which matter for eternity and the cause of Christ.
In 1 Peter 4:12, Peter writes to his readers that they should not be surprised by the painful trials that they are suffering.
Throughout the Bible we encounter incident upon incident in which the people of God have undergone trials and persecution. You can spend some time looking up and reading their stories.
In the Old Testament, we encounter the persecution of Moses Daniel, Elijah, and others.
In the Gospels we see the actual persecution of God himself, in the crucifixion of His Son, Jesus Christ.
In the book of Acts, we are given insight into the degree Saul persecuted believers in the early Church and the extent he was later persecuted himself.
Throughout the Bible and recorded history, the list goes on and on.
However, to these believers whom Peter is addressing, he has to tell them to not be surprised by the trials they are undergoing. Should not history and the words of Jesus Christ have been enough that these Christians should have expected this to be the case? Probably not.
For many of us, there is a false mentality where we want to believe that as long we serve and follow Christ, our life will be smooth and easy. One of the most popular theologies of our present day is the "Name It and Claim It" and "Health, Wealth, and Prosperity" gospels. The simplistic version of these theologies is that if we ask God for it, he gives it to us. However, we look at our own life and the lives of fellow believers (especially those in the Bible), we know that is not the case.
God's promise is that by accepting Him as Lord and Savior, He will give us eternal life (John 3:16), not an incident free life on this earth. When we share God's message with those who don't know Christ, we need to share this truth.
Additionally, one other truth we need be aware of is that no matter how difficult our trials may be, God's promise is to provide strength in our weakness (2 Corinthians 9&10).
Just as Peter instructed these early believers to not be surprised by the trials they were undergoing, we need to realize the fact that we live in a fallen, sinful world. As a result, we too will suffer trials even though, and maybe because, we claim Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.
But when we can see clearly, we understand. And that gives us strength... and hope.
The author is publisher of the Online Christian Shopper store specializing in Christian T-Shirts and the Christian Jewelry Online Christian jewelery store.
Source:www.isnare.com |
