WIRED FOR ETERNITY

“Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits at God’s right hand in the place of honor and power. Let heaven fill your thoughts.”  (Colossians 3:1-2)

C. S. Lewis, the brilliant Christian apologist, noticed that everything that satisfies fails to satisfy completely. If we enjoy something, we always want more! Desires for such things as food, drink, and a home can normally be satisfied, but the lasting desires cannot be satisfied on this earth. This led Lewis to conclude that we were made for another world. There is a depth to human experience that will not and cannot reach fulfillment on this earth -- because we were made for heaven. “This world is not my home.” Time will never fulfill our deepest longings, because we were wired for eternity. 

-- Stuart Briscoe in “Daily Study Bible for Men”

#5768

LAST WORDS FROM THE CROSS

Jesus said, “It is finished.”  (John 19:30)

What was finished?

The history-long plan of redeeming man was finished. The message of God to man was finished. The works done by Jesus as a man on earth were finished. The task of selecting and training ambassadors was finished. The job was finished. The song was sung. The blood had been poured. The sacrifice had been made. The sting of death had been removed. It was over.

A cry of defeat? Hardly. Had His hands not been fastened down I dare say a triumphant fist would have punched the dark sky. No, this is no cry of despair. It is a cry of completion. A cry of relief. A roar of fulfillment. A shout of victory. 

-- Max Lucado in “The Cross: Selected Writings & Images”

#5330

A TIME OF PROMISE

EDITOR’S NOTE: Fr. Alfred Delp, S.J., was a heroic German Jesuit priest who was imprisoned and martyred by the Nazis in a Nazi death camp in 1945. While in prison, Fr. Delp was able to write a few meditations including his powerful reflections from prison during the Advent season about the profound spiritual meaning and lessons of Advent. They seem to be equally relevant to Advent 2020.

A TIME OF PROMISE

Advent is the time of promise; it is not yet the time of fulfillment. We are still in the midst of everything and in the logical inexorability and relentlessness of destiny… Space is still filled with the noise of destruction and annihilation, the shouts of self-assurance and arrogance, the weeping of despair and helplessness. But round about the horizon the eternal realities stand silent in their age-old longing. There shines on them already the first mild light of the radiant fulfillment to come. From afar sound the first notes as of pipes and voices, not yet discernable as a song or melody. It is all far off still, and only just announced and foretold. But it is happening, today. 

-- Alfred Delp in “Advent of the Heart: Seasonal Sermons And Prison Writings 1941-1944”

#4985

FAR AS THE CURSE IS FOUND

“No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make His blessings flow, far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found.”  (The third verse of “Joy to the World” by Isaac Watts)

The reversal of the curse is promised in the coming of the Messiah and the fulfillment of His atoning work. Implicit in this third verse is the promise of the new creation. We live in light of that promise, even as we look back to Bethlehem and as we celebrate Christmas.

But look carefully at the reference to the curse. Christ’s victory over sin is declared to extend “far as the curse is found.”…

He redeemed us from the curse by becoming a curse for us. The sinless Son of God became incarnate as the Word became flesh and dwelled among us. That sinless Son of God became sin for us, in order that we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). He became a curse for us, by hanging on a tree, in fulfillment of Scripture…

How far does the gospel reach, and to what lengths must it be taken? Far as the curse is found. Go and preach. Go and tell. Teach the good news that Christ has redeemed us from the curse by becoming a curse for us.

Joy to the world! The Lord is come.

-- R. Albert Mohler, Jr.


#4726

ALL YOU WERE MEANT TO BE

Here is a great secret of the Bible: Your longing to become all you were meant to be is a tiny echo of God’s longing to begin the new creation.  The rabbis spoke of this as tikkun olam -- to fix the world.  The more concerned you are about your own fulfillment, the less fulfilled you will be.  When your life is devoted to yourself, it is as small as a grain of wheat.  When your life is given to God, however, it is as if that grain is planted in rich soil, growing into part of a much bigger project.

The picture used at the end of the Bible is that of a wedding, a glimpse of what God has been up to all this time:  "I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband."  One day there will be a glorious harmony between God and all that He has made.  God wants no one left out.  As you flourish, you help in God’s re-creation of the world He wants to see.

-- John Ortberg in The Me I Want to Be


#3283