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I love the infomercials that try to lure you with the ‘hidden deal’. “You think this is good? Wait until you see what is behind door number 2!”
I’m guessing this must work often enough to make it worth their while because they (whoever ‘they’ are) have been luring us for years.
Our human mind is unbelievably conscious of the sensual. We are sensual beings. Our lives are built on what we can see, what we can touch, what we can smell or hear or feel. Anything that goes beyond this is considered out of the ordinary.
This is yet another amazing dichotomy of Christianity. Our faith isn’t built on the sensory. We believe in a God we can not see, yet who reveals himself in a multitude of very real ways. We put our hope in a world we can not see and never ends. The concept of eternity boggles my mind!
When we focus on our senses, we are limited. When we put all our hope in the here and now, it gets discouraging. Paul writes in Colossians to never forget we are merely temporary sojourners in a foreign land. Homeless immigrants longing for the homeland, and what a homeland that must be.
Take a few moments and invite your mind to imagine what the world would be like if you could speak anything into existence. You got rid of prejudice. You destroyed every disease known to man. You made all food health food. You destroyed greed of every kind. Keep going. Let your mind go wild! Then realize that your wildest imagination doesn’t come close to what God has in store for you in eternity.
I can’t wait. While here, I’ll tell his story, but my heart is home with him. Thank you Jesus.
We live in a fast-paced world in which social media, the internet and rapidly changing cultural values are placed front row, and center in our lives. It seems like everything that those in my baby boomer generation counted as stable is falling away. Some of that, to be honest, is a good thing. I’m beginning to realize the ‘simple life’ I grew up in was often a cover-up for an undercurrent of things that never should have happened.
The trade off, however isn’t always positive. With all the ‘advancements’ our society has made, one thing that seems to have been left behind is hope. HOPE. Such a simple word, yet so complex. Wars have been fought in the name of hope; lives have been destroyed in the search for hope.
Hope is elusive on the human plane. We seek it in relationships. We seek it through political and social action. We seek it, or at least try to escape it’s evil twin– hopelessness — through chemicals. We may even try it through religion. But none of that really satisfies. People fail. Government fails. Gaining rights for one group rapes other groups of their ‘rights’. Religion only offers surface comfort for the pain.
There is only one thing that offers total hope and that is Jesus. He’s not about rules and religion. He has no expectations for you to measure up to who he is. When we place our focus on who he is, and what he has done; when we realize the hopelessness of this world is temporary and a better world awaits us; when we realize the pain we suffer now is nothing compared to the joy we have in him, we also find that elusive thing we’ve sought for: HOPE.
Mike Fisk & Built with Grace 