Break from school = pleasure reading

I've had time to do some reading this morning and I thought that it was worth sharing. What I was reading is that we must look at our problems with the eyes of Christ and live with the destination in view. We need to have the end in sight. Revelation 7:9-10 is that end. "After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb". We need to have the end in sight while we are living in this age. It clarifies our values in the present. The most important thing today is not the new house, new job, or latest ____. The one thing worth celebrating for all of eternity is your redemption. We will be a part of that great multitude celebrating the one thing worth living for: the Lamb and his salvation. God is preparing us to live in his kingdom at this moment. He is refining us and making us more holy today than we were yesterday.

Once we trust in Jesus as the only Lord of our life, we are justified - seen as just before God, and we get credit for living a perfect life. BUT that's not all we get, we get everything we need to live holy, God exalting lives here. That's part of sanctification. We do this out of living with hope in future grace- the grace that God will give us in 10 seconds, 10 days, and 10 years from now. God has been faithful to us in the past, and he will continue to do it in the future. Putting our trust and hope in His future grace will allow us to conquer our unbelief and sever the root of sin. When we realize this and see the future, it changes the way we live. We all need our values clarified so we are reminded that the physical world around us with its pleasures (nice food, clothing, cars, etc.) is garbage compared to the pleasures of knowing and delighting in God (Phil 3:8) . They will not make you happy. All the good things in this world are there to elicit happiness in us and make us think of our Creator who alone will satisfy. Happiness and enjoyment are not bad things at all, but are instead created to drive us to God and Christ- our only means of being with God through his sacrifice for us. When we delight in him, we prize him above all else - for God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him (John Piper).

The following is a passage from the book I was reading this morning. The author is talking about his rebellious child, but I saw in it the situation with my father. He is about to start chemotherapy next week in order to - Lord willing - eradicate cancer from his body. For you, you may see a situation that you are going through and my prayer is that it will be of comfort to you in whatever problem you're struggling in. I felt like I needed to share this. The text that follows is an illustration of the application of the principles above.

It was one of those late-night, concerned-parents conversations that come when you get scared about where one of your children is headed. The longer my wife and I talked and brainstormed about worst-case scenarios, the more we felt parental panic. We focus on our fears of all that could go wrong. Our panic did not subside until we began to help each other see the Lord at work in our child's life. We were dedicated Christian parents, but we were still blind to what the Lord was doing before our eyes. We were looking in all the wrong places at all the wrong things. The result was hopeless panic.

We needed to see that our hope was not in the fact that we had everything under control - we obviously didn't. Our confidence could not be in the fact that we had everything tied up in a neat little bow- things were actually quite messy. Our confidence had to be that Christ was carrying us - and our child - through the process he had ordained and would complete. We began to see that this hard moment was a God-given step toward a wonderful destination. This prepared us to deal in a very different way with the issues that had previously produced fear.

Is there someone in your life you are looking at through the lens of pessimistic fear? Is there someone you've given up on? Is there someone you do all you can to avoid? Is there someone in your life you fear? Is there someone you are bitter against? Is there someone you envy? What might God be saying to you about your relationship to this person? How does God's "steps to the destination" perspective change the way you relate to him or her?

You need to make your final destination the lens you use to evaluate your life. We all know that life is sloppy, hard, messy, shameful and boring.

We often deal with things that are out of our control. Good things tend to go band and bad things tend to seduce us. People leave us hurt and disappointed. Change is often much, much slower than we want it to be. God's Word is full of powerful life principles, but applying them to life is not always an easy task. We tend to encounter the same problems again and again. It is easy to believe that we are powerless to change and that all our effort is meaningless.

The gospel calls us to look at the messiness of life in a radically different way. The good news of the gospel is that Christ has conquered sin and death, and with them every word, action, desire, and response with meaning and purpose. There are no completely hopeless situations. The gospel welcomes us to a hopeful realism. We can look life in the face and still be hopeful of who Christ is and where he is taking us. Everything God has brought into your life has been brought with your destination in view. God is moving you on, even when you think you are stuck.

Your destination is secure. All of the things that are truly worth living for cannot be taken away from you! Yes, you can lose your job, your health, your house, your car, or your friend. The loss of any of these things would be hard. But you cannot lose your identity in Christ. You cannot lose his love and grace. You cannot lose his gift of forgiveness or the place reserved for you in heaven. When you keep your eyes on the destination and pursue the things that move you there, you can live securely in a world where it seems as if nothing is guaranteed. You will not escape the difficulties of life, but you can rest assured that your Savior will use each one to prepare you for the place he is taking you.

Think about it for a moment. You can be at peace even though you do not know how today's drama will end or what tomorrow will bring. You can live with joy even while things make you sad. Christian joy is not about avoiding life while dreaming about heaven. It is about taking an utterly honest look at all earthly life through heaven's lens. There we find real hope.

Well, I hope I didn't just type that in vain. I know God will use it in someones life, and for that it was worth it. If you liked that passage, and want to hear more, please buy the book, "How People Change" by Paul Tripp and Timothy Lane (taken from pp 43-44). It's worth it.

Have a great day.

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Books that influenced this post: "How People Change" by Paul Tripp and Timothy Lane and "Desiring God" and "Future Grace" by John Piper and obviously The Word of God