The last few blog/podcasts I’ve produced have been related. They deal with remaining joyful and hopeful during difficulty because God is always at work saving, healing, and restoring broken people and our fallen world. In the future he will complete this redemptive work for believers, the nation of Israel, and the natural world.
This week’s episode continues that theme. I didn’t plan it this way. As God directs, I try to write what would help my children and my students. Many of them are struggling right now. If they could just see how God cares for them it would make a difference. He desires to rescue them, support them, and guide them as only he can. When you face stressful circumstances beyond your control. When you are stuck with people who bring you harm or misery. When you can’t escape the snare of addiction or you keep doing what you know you shouldn’t. When you suffer chronic pain or depression and no remedy works. Or when you feel like nothing satisfies and you’re going nowhere. What do you do? I encourage you to trust and obey God. He loves you and will faithfully deliver you. How do I know? Because he has perfectly proven his power, goodness, and faithfulness again and again. He never fails. He promises in all things to work for the good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28). To those with eyes to see God reveals his holy nature and awesome plans. To those with minds to learn God shares his wisdom. He teaches and inspires them. To those with hearts to receive God heals, empowers, and transforms. Get a glimpse of God’s glory and the greater days he is bringing about, then work with him toward that. Also share it with others.
God gives and has given numerous glimpses of who he is and what he is doing. He has revealed himself in his word, the Bible, through his Holy Spirit, in nature and his promise of a new heaven and earth, and most profoundly by his Son, Jesus. Let’s briefly look at each of these.
God’s Word
Throughout the Bible you see God at work saving people. The Old Testament lays a foundation for the nation of Israel to be a light to all nations living out what it means to have God as their benevolent king. The New Testament completes that plan by Jesus, God the Son, dying and rising again to become savior, Lord, and King for anyone who places their faith in him. God performs numerous miracles to demonstrate his powerful love for people. God institutes marriage, family, and the church as blessed examples of the love, support, and fellowship he has within his triune nature of Father, Son, and Spirit. God gives humankind a natural world of seasons, bounty, beauty, and wonder as a glimpse of his creativity and providence. God prophesies of redemptive events in detail. Many have been fulfilled and many are yet to be fulfilled. A marvelous truth about God is that he never changes and thus his word never changes. In hindsight as we read of all he has done to save people, we gain foresight into how he will continue to save.
Holy Spirit
Anyone who trusts Jesus to save them receives God’s Spirit to live in them. He is a deposit guaranteeing that believers will inherit all God has promised to those who love him (Ephesians 1:13-14). The Spirit comforts, counsels, trains, and empowers believers to carry out Jesus’ mission of reconciliation and become more like Jesus in the process. This transformation changes your character, your thoughts, and your actions. It is a preview of even greater development to come as God restores believers to all they are meant to be in Jesus. As believers submit to the Spirit’s work they see and understand God better. In turn, they demonstrate his attributes like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:13-26). Similar to the apostles in the Bible, you probably know people who have significantly changed after choosing to follow Jesus. That’s been the case for me. If you haven’t begun to follow Jesus I hope you do. It’s the most important decision of your life. God’s Spirit at work sanctifying believers is a wonderful glimpse of their full glorification yet to come.
Heaven
The Bible gives us glimpses that surpass our imagination of what we can expect in the future. After Jesus died and rose again he returned to heaven to prepare for our future with him (John 14:1-3; Acts 1:1-11). In God’s perfect time, Jesus will return to consummate his kingdom. He will gather believers to reign with him, he will judge unbelievers, he will put an end to evil and Satan and establish righteousness forever. After defeating his enemies, fulfilling his promises to Israel, and restoring creation, God will dwell among his people in a new heaven and earth. There will be no more suffering, death, or sorrow. Believers will receive their glorified bodies and joyfully live with God and his family carrying out his wonderful purposes for eternity (Revelation 19:11-21:8; 1 Corinthians 15:42-58; Philippians 3:20-21; 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18).
Jesus, God the Son
Without Jesus no one can know God. Jesus is God the Son who became a man to reveal who God is and to enable us to have a saving relationship with God. In the book of Hebrews it describes Jesus, “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven” (Hebrews 1:1-3). Apart from Jesus there no way to reach God because our self-centered waywardness separates us from God. But Jesus came to change that by living the life we should live and dying the death that we deserve. He gave his life as a ransom to pay the death penalty for our sin (2 Corinthians 5:21). Then he rose from the dead to give us victory over sin and new life with God. “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross” (Colossians 1:19-20). “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). All of God promises are fulfilled through Jesus (1 Corinthians 1:20-22). He is not just the creator, but also the sustainer and completer of salvation. He is the author and perfecter of faith. He is the Alpha and Omega, the Brginning and the End (Colossians 1:15-23; Hebrews 12:2; Philippians 1:6; Revelation 21:6-7). Therefore Jesus is a forerunner of all we are meant to be as children of God. He is the quintessential son who is united with his father through humble trust and obedience just as we should be.
If you haven’t come to trust Jesus as your savior, I encourage you to. “Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him” (Psalm 34:8). Because Jesus lives, you can truly live. Before his death, resurrection, and ascension Jesus told his disciples of the life and unity they can have with God because of him, “Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them” (John 14:19-21; see also 1 Corinthians 15). Faith is getting a glimpse of the abundant salvation and life God graciously provides through Jesus and then placing your hope, loyalty, trust, and obedience in him. When you do the blessings of his presence, peace, salvation, victory, and life become a reality for you.
Give a Glimpse
As you get glimpses of God’s glorious nature and salvation work you should share it with others so they can come to know God also. Thank God for glimpses from his word and his Spirit, glimpses of heaven, glimpses of changed lives, and glimpses of Jesus. Enjoy and take to heart the truth from these insights. Be changed by them. Then pass this joy and knowledge on to others. You have been blessed to be a blessing (2 Corinthians 5:14-21). Jesus told his disciples, “As the Father has sent me, so am I sending you” (John 20:21). Proclaim the truth in love to everyone God gives you the opportunity. Serve those in need. Teach those who listen. Train those who respond. By faith act on the glimpses of truth God has already revealed in order to do the next right thing. Pray that God’s kingly rule and his will which are carried out in heaven and which you have been given glimpses of, would be brought to fruition on earth through his Spirit at work in you and other believers (Matthew 6:9-15).