Where is Your Security?

Several years ago, I had a significant health scare. Things turned out to not be as bad as we imagined and with God’s healing hand, and good health care, I made a full recovery. But the event itself raised significant questions. The thoughts that ran through my mind were, “you have been talking about Christianity with its life to come for some time. Do you really believe it?” Then came the thought, “Here we go. We’re going to see what really lies ahead.”

 In John 14:1-3, Jesus noticed the concerns of the disciples and lays out “the plan.”Who would have dreamed that Jesus himself was going away to make a place for us to stay and then invite us to live there? But this is what He promised. This promised hope in the future is certain because it is based on the reliability of God’s character and His promises.

There are many of these promises throughout the Scripture. Look at the description of our inheritance that Peter describes in 1 Peter 1:2-9. It starts out this way: “In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you.” It is really magnificent, beyond what we can imagine. We have a certain hope based on God’s unchanging nature that keeps us going.

It is this hope that lets us hang in there when times are difficult.

So, it is appropriate to muse on the future to come and our life with hope. Why?  Because it calls us forward, and encourages us to focus on what really matters.  Pain without hope is devastating. But pain with hope is somehow bearable. The existence of hope in a hospital setting has a huge difference in healing. Life is made of hope.

God calls us to trust Him in all of life, in our joys and in our pain. And it is knowing our future, knowing God’s promises, and knowing the God who made these promises that keeps us going. That is why remembering is so key to hope.  Remembering what God has done gives us a certain hope that He will do what he said He would do. Look at Psalm 77, an incredible lament. It depicts what is historically called “The Dark Night of the Soul,” wherein God seems to be completely silent. But by the end of the psalm, the focus is back on God’s work throughout Israel’s history. In recalling God’s faithfulness in the past, a beam of light shines through into the present.

Here are several verses in the darkness:

“Will the Lord spurn forever, and never again be favorable?
Has his steadfast love forever ceased?
Are his promises at an end for all time?
Has God forgotten to be gracious?
Had he in anger shut up his compassion?”  Psalm 77:7-9 ESV 

And then come these verses of remembering:

“Then I said ‘I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High.’
I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your wonders of old.
I will ponder all your work and meditate on your mighty deeds.”  Psalm 77:10-12 ESV. 

 Here is the path to embracing our secure inheritance today and even in difficult circumstances. We know our future and our inheritance is certain because God has shown himself to be reliable. Not only in past history, but also in our own lives.  That is why we can look forward with hope. The Apostle Paul summarizes it this way:

“For this light and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” 2 Cor:16-18 ESV