05/11/2019
Of whom, or what, in our life can we say “will be with me always” with any true assuredness? We live in a transient world that is in a constant state of coming and going. People are born, and then die; buildings are built and then decay and fall. Trees grow tall, only to fall and return to the ground where past leaves await them. Without God, and Jesus Christ, there is no eternal hope... no “always” in our lives.
“teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."”
Matthew 28:20 ESV
On April 23rd 1986 the city of Chernobyl in Northern Ukraine was a vibrant city with thousands of families, Parks, businesses, and a nuclear plant to provide it power. On April 24-25 it met with terrible disaster as reactor 4 at the power plant melted down, and the city was covered in radioactive fallout. Today it is a ghost town, and the tall buildings, schools, and playgrounds are rapidly deteriorating and returning to the ground. The city will be gone long before the radioactivity that poisons it.
This is what awaits all that man builds, and man himself. The city of Tyre in biblical times met a similar fate, Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, Atlantis, and Troy have vanished, the list is long... at best, all that remains of these places and their people are stories told as mere legend or fable. This is not a place of eternity... this is a place where even suns are formed and die, and stars fall from the sky.
So in what do you put your trust? What is it about you that is going to last an eternity? There is only one who has eternity in the palm of His hand and doles it out to those whom He finds worthy... God Himself. I would recommend you read it’s entirety, but here is a snippet from Psalm 90 that partially describes God’s eternal nature...
“Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. You return man to dust and say, "Return, O children of man!"”
Psalms 90:1-3 ESV
God is eternal, and man is not, but there is hope in Jesus for us to join Him in eternity. God loves us, we are His creation, and He wishes us to be with Him always. He sent His Son Jesus Christ as the template by which we are to be transformed, and thus realize an eternal nature. Just as Jesus was made eternal, so can we be made...
“"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
John 3:16-17 ESV
In the midst of the comings and goings, the rising and falling, and the births and deaths, there is hope for us... eternal life. Man has written of, and longed for, eternity since the breath of life was first breathed into him. Listen to these words of hope in God as penned in “An Essay on Man” written by Alexander Pope...
“Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;
Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore!
What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come. “
Link to the full poem:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44899/an-essay-on-man-epistle-i
So we are born into a violent world of seething creation and destruction, but there is hope! We have a hope of eternal life in Christ, and it is not extended turmoil, but joy, peace, rest, and the other gifts of the spirit. It is love that knew no beginning, and knows no end; yet always was. It is a heavenly relationship that never fades away or crumbles into the dust. It is our hope everlasting, and the tiny mustard seed of faith in the extended hand of God.
“Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.”
Romans 15:13 KJV
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for eternity which you hold in the palm of your hand, and extend to me through your grace as it flows from Jesus Christ your Son. I thank you for all the gifts of the spirit that have been given me, and that await me, and the hope I have in you, which erupts from do deep within me. Hope so humble, and yet which springs eternal. Oh Holy Father I lift up my eyes to you, and open my arms of faith that you might receive me. Teach me through your Word, forgive me by the sacrificial blood of Jesus, and give me understanding by your Holy Spirit. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you my God whose love has known me always, and by whose Son’s death and resurrection I have been made pure. Great are you, and greatly to be praised! Glorified are you eternally by your gift of grace to me... an undeserving soul that otherwise would rise, and then return as ash and dust to the earth forever, but now had hope of life eternal.
“But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Romans 6:22-23 KJV
Rich Forbes