Do you wish that you knew what your future would be? What would you do if you knew your future? If it was going to be prosperous? If it was going to be full of suffering and calamity? Who doesn't feel inquisitive to know the future?
I remember when I was a kid one of the big craze was Ouji boards. Do any of you remember? Now without getting into all the ramifications of Ouija boards,I remember one time I did the Ouija board when I was a little kid and I asked what was going to be the name of my future wife? The Ouija board spelled out that my wife's name going to be Martha. When I got older I kept my eyes out for a Martha. I never did meet any. girl named Martha LOL I did marry someone but her name was Debi not Martha!
There's always been a quest for man to know his future. Is it no wonder why people have consulted mediums, fortunetellers, clairvoyants, soothsayers, and whatever latest prophet is on the rise? Even in the church, there are those who travel everywhere hoping for some alleged prophet to give them some kind of predictive word about their future. But in spite of all this, the fact is God does not tell us much about our own personal future. Yes he gives us a prophetic timetable about the course of history leading to the end of this age and the new world to come. But when it comes to our daily lives we experience much frustration at times because God does not reveal to us our personal future.
Does that bother you? Wouldn't it be better if we could know what is the future for us and our lives? I'd like to give several reasons why I think God in his deep love and care for us thinks that knowing our future would not be in our best interest but rather desires us to live by faith.
More than anything else:
GOD HIDES OUR FUTURE SO THAT WE WOULD TRUST HIM
We read in Ecclesiastes, "Consider what God has done: Who can straighten what he has made crooked? When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, a man cannot discover anything about his future. (7: 13–14)
The writer’s point is that just aaren’t always what they seem. God has made both good and bad times, and that he pieces them together in our lives in such a way that we won’t know what will happen in the future. God structures our personal histories in a way that conceals the future.
So Why does God hide the future from us?
1. Knowing the details of our future would probably be harmful to us. If we knew our future would be good we might be relieved but the joy of discovery would be gone. What should be so great when it happens would lose it's excitement as a surprise. We might even be bored, and the joy of anticipation will be gone.
2. Revealing a good future might also make us complacent in our relationship with God, and that would be bad. If we know that the future is going to be good, we might conclude that we don't need to rely on God, but obviously we do. We might also be very inattentive to the present and impatient to get to the future as we eagerly await it.
3. If we thought the future was going to be evil if we knew in advance the circumstances of our death, or if we knew what would befall us along the way, we might be totally horrified and unable to live our lives as fear would paralyze us.
4. Hiding the future is also compassionate because we must not ignore the present, something we might do if we knew the future. We might spend so much of our time worrying or grieving over our anticipated future. Even more so, we might think that we could somehow change the future to avoid the forcing evils.
5. Gods hiding your future is also compassion, because we couldn't handle some of the information about the future if we had it.
God compassionately reveals the details for our future moment by moment, and that is enough. Scripture says, "each day has enough trouble of its own" (Matthew 6:34). I don't have tomorrow's grace yet, so I don't need to know tomorrow's evil yet either.
God conceals our future, therefore, so that we would trust Him. He not only not knows the future, but HE holds the future. I'll rest in that.
Pastor Bill
Thursday, September 22, 2016
Friday, September 16, 2016
Thoughts On Being Perfect While Being Perfected
For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.Hebrews 10:14 ESV
The more I read the scriptures, the more I am amazed at its depth. Growing in maturity causes us to learn to let God be God and let His word speak for itself, even when it proposes two seeming contradictions in passages such as Hebrews 10:14. Think about it. God has already perfected us because of Christ, yet God is also perfecting us who are perfected because of Christ. This is not easy to understand, much less savor and glory in at first glance. It might be easier for some of us to quickly pass over a passage such as this because of its seeming difficulty.
But oh, the loss of great blessings and encouragement! The apostle Paul gives us a great exhortation in 2 Timothy 2:7. "Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything." He says think, reflect, muse, ponder, meditate and the Lord by His Spirit will enable us to understand. In short, we are to think and God will help us through the means of thought to apprehend spiritual truths.
With this in mind, Hebrews 10:14 is well worth pondering. The first blessing here is that Christ has already perfected His people."For by a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified." Now consider this wonderful truth. This is in the perfect tense, meaning Jesus Christ has perfected His people. It is complete and finished forever.
What is hard to grasp here is that if this is true, then why am I so imperfect? How can He say I am perfected when I have sinned already several times this morning? Because of what He says in the next clause
"For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified."Who has been perfected? Those who are being sanctified or those who are being perfected! This is in the indicative tense meaning continuous action. So those who are "being sanctified" are not yet fully sanctified in the sense of perfection in this life and ceasing from committing sin. Otherwise they would not need to be ongoing sanctified.
So here we have the both shocking and awesome combination. The very people who are perfect are the very ones who are being perfected! By the work of the cross "for by a single offering"there is total, complete forgiveness (read Hebrews 10:15-18). When He looks at us, He does not impute any of our sins to us-past, present, or future. He does not count our sins against us. In eternity Christ sees you as already perfect, and thus we stand before Him perfected. We can stand before Him with the assurance that you are perfected and complete in the eyes of God.
But in this present time those who are perfect are being perfected. The very reality of our imperfection gives us assurance that we are in this life time are progressing towards our perfection purchased and guaranteed by the blood of Jesus Christ.
God is making us into what He already sees us as being and our experience testifies to it as we trust in this reality by faith and move away from our imperfections and move closer and closer in this lifetime to perfection. Oh what encouragement in our imperfection and what motivation for holiness. Hebrews 10:14 says that you can be assured that you stand perfect in the eyes of God not because you are perfect now, but because in your present imperfection you are being perfected.
Oh reader, consider these promises and let them encourage you today and reinforces Hebrews 10:14 to you. Take heart and fix your eyes on the one who perfected you once for all time and is perfecting you day by day.
Philippians 1:6, "I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ."
Philippians 2:12-13, "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure."
2 Corinthians 3:18, "And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit."
Amazed and full of joy,
Pastor Bill
The more I read the scriptures, the more I am amazed at its depth. Growing in maturity causes us to learn to let God be God and let His word speak for itself, even when it proposes two seeming contradictions in passages such as Hebrews 10:14. Think about it. God has already perfected us because of Christ, yet God is also perfecting us who are perfected because of Christ. This is not easy to understand, much less savor and glory in at first glance. It might be easier for some of us to quickly pass over a passage such as this because of its seeming difficulty.
But oh, the loss of great blessings and encouragement! The apostle Paul gives us a great exhortation in 2 Timothy 2:7. "Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything." He says think, reflect, muse, ponder, meditate and the Lord by His Spirit will enable us to understand. In short, we are to think and God will help us through the means of thought to apprehend spiritual truths.
With this in mind, Hebrews 10:14 is well worth pondering. The first blessing here is that Christ has already perfected His people."For by a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified." Now consider this wonderful truth. This is in the perfect tense, meaning Jesus Christ has perfected His people. It is complete and finished forever.
What is hard to grasp here is that if this is true, then why am I so imperfect? How can He say I am perfected when I have sinned already several times this morning? Because of what He says in the next clause
"For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified."Who has been perfected? Those who are being sanctified or those who are being perfected! This is in the indicative tense meaning continuous action. So those who are "being sanctified" are not yet fully sanctified in the sense of perfection in this life and ceasing from committing sin. Otherwise they would not need to be ongoing sanctified.
So here we have the both shocking and awesome combination. The very people who are perfect are the very ones who are being perfected! By the work of the cross "for by a single offering"there is total, complete forgiveness (read Hebrews 10:15-18). When He looks at us, He does not impute any of our sins to us-past, present, or future. He does not count our sins against us. In eternity Christ sees you as already perfect, and thus we stand before Him perfected. We can stand before Him with the assurance that you are perfected and complete in the eyes of God.
But in this present time those who are perfect are being perfected. The very reality of our imperfection gives us assurance that we are in this life time are progressing towards our perfection purchased and guaranteed by the blood of Jesus Christ.
God is making us into what He already sees us as being and our experience testifies to it as we trust in this reality by faith and move away from our imperfections and move closer and closer in this lifetime to perfection. Oh what encouragement in our imperfection and what motivation for holiness. Hebrews 10:14 says that you can be assured that you stand perfect in the eyes of God not because you are perfect now, but because in your present imperfection you are being perfected.
Oh reader, consider these promises and let them encourage you today and reinforces Hebrews 10:14 to you. Take heart and fix your eyes on the one who perfected you once for all time and is perfecting you day by day.
Philippians 1:6, "I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ."
Philippians 2:12-13, "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure."
2 Corinthians 3:18, "And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit."
Amazed and full of joy,
Pastor Bill
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