Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Things Unfolding

I loved this devotion from Tim Tomlinson, President of Bethlehem College and Seminary.
The Second Coming of Christ always stirs up different kinds of emotions in me: hopefulness, comfort, contrition...Any others?

With all of the political turmoil and potential explosiveness happening in Egypt, Libya, and several other countries in the Middle East, and even nearby Wisconsin, it is both understandable and easy to begin to worry about the future. What happens there will surely have an impact on the rest of the world to one degree or another.

The temptation when such potentially cataclysmic events occur is to be anxious about our own well-being and that of our families. As natural as that is, it is still an inappropriate reaction on our part. The Lord has not called us to a spirit of fear, but rather one of absolute faith in His sovereignty over all the earth. Whatever kind of earthly crisis or disaster you fear or become anxious about, the only solution is to remind ourselves of the absolute authority of the Lord over all things.

"John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so, Amen. I am the Alpha and Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty" (Revelation 1:4-8).


Six observations from this passage which help me deal rightly with earthly worries are:
  1. The Lord is eternal. He was, he is, and he will be forever!
  2. Jesus Christ is the ruler of the kings of the earth--whether they worship him or not.
  3. Jesus loves us and has, therefore, freed us from our sins by his blood. This fact alone is more important and crucial for our well-being than any other thing in the universe!
  4. We serve a God who is glorious and who has dominion over all things forever.
  5. One day he will return to earth in the clouds and everyone who has rejected him will finally see him for who he really is--and they will be terribly sorry.
  6. The Lord God is the beginning and the end of all things. He is the Almighty God!

May you and I trust wholly in the sovereign God of the universe and rest completely in him.

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