Flawed (Part 5)
Hebrews 13:5 "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever."
You have to fully accept who you are today before you can reach forward and be an overcomer in your future. If you try to make changes in reaching tomorrow's goals without accepting who your are today you feel completely unsatisfied with where you're going, You have to accept, acknowledge, and appreciate where you are today. Your flaws can prohibit your future from being completed if they control your thoughts today.
Hebrews 13:5 "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever."
You have to fully accept who you are today before you can reach forward and be an overcomer in your future. If you try to make changes in reaching tomorrow's goals without accepting who your are today you feel completely unsatisfied with where you're going, You have to accept, acknowledge, and appreciate where you are today. Your flaws can prohibit your future from being completed if they control your thoughts today.
As a Christian you must remember God’s work in the past, but you must also be aware of what God is doing today. We look to God’s activity in the past to remind ourselves that God’s promises are for us now and for our future. God is still active in the world today, changing lives, healing and saving. The best is not behind us, but the best is yet to come. You just have to see it today and accept it personally.
You cannot be afraid of your future. Jesus reminds you to live each day knowing the love and care of God and to allow the future to worry about itself. Jesus said in Matthew 6:34:
“Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”
Jesus also promised in Matthew 28:20:
“Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”
The story of God’s people in the Old Testament and the New Testament is one of God’s faithfulness. When God made a promise He kept that promise. However, it is also a story of human faithlessness as the people of God grew weary of faith and tired of hope. Over and over again they gave up on God, but God never gave up on them. God will not give up on you now and never will. God is with you always. It is not what you were that matters to Him, but it's what you are now.
Remember what God has done for you today as well as in the past. The Christian faith is based upon God’s faithfulness in the past which you can take personally. We look back to the Old Testament and Isaiah’s prophecy came to pass, which was the people marched back through the desert home to Jerusalem. After almost two thousand years in exile from AD 70 to 1948, the Jewish people found a home again in the land of Israel. What God promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob 1900 years before Jesus is still God’s promise over 2000 years after. For us as Christians we look to Jesus, the Messiah of Israel and Savior of the whole world. In Jesus, God Himself paid the penalty for our sins. In Jesus, God came into the world to be one of us; nothing human is foreign to this God. In Jesus, God is with us now and will be forever. God will never leaves us or forsake us.
You cannot be afraid of your future. Jesus reminds you to live each day knowing the love and care of God and to allow the future to worry about itself. Jesus said in Matthew 6:34:
“Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”
Jesus also promised in Matthew 28:20:
“Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”
The story of God’s people in the Old Testament and the New Testament is one of God’s faithfulness. When God made a promise He kept that promise. However, it is also a story of human faithlessness as the people of God grew weary of faith and tired of hope. Over and over again they gave up on God, but God never gave up on them. God will not give up on you now and never will. God is with you always. It is not what you were that matters to Him, but it's what you are now.
Remember what God has done for you today as well as in the past. The Christian faith is based upon God’s faithfulness in the past which you can take personally. We look back to the Old Testament and Isaiah’s prophecy came to pass, which was the people marched back through the desert home to Jerusalem. After almost two thousand years in exile from AD 70 to 1948, the Jewish people found a home again in the land of Israel. What God promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob 1900 years before Jesus is still God’s promise over 2000 years after. For us as Christians we look to Jesus, the Messiah of Israel and Savior of the whole world. In Jesus, God Himself paid the penalty for our sins. In Jesus, God came into the world to be one of us; nothing human is foreign to this God. In Jesus, God is with us now and will be forever. God will never leaves us or forsake us.
Isaiah 43:1, 2 says:
“But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.
“But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.
The verb tense used here is the present tense. God was not only with people in the past, but God is with you today. God did not only save long ago, but God is saving you right now.
It is too easy for most of us over fifty years old, to look back to the days when churches were growing and expanding. You could announce a goal for 300 attendance on a special day and three hundred people or more would show up. Yet, that past is not coming back. So you the Church must be daring and innovative, living in the present and preparing for what is to come, by looking past your flaws to the God of today.
God’s love and salvation is not just for yesterday but today and tomorrow and all the tomorrows to come. Jesus is with us even to the end of the age. Embrace
and make peace with where you are today, and your journey toward something new will
feel much more peaceful, rewarding, and satisfying.
No comments:
Post a Comment