Month: January 2018

Here we are, just a little over a week into 2018, and maybe already you’re feeling a little like, It’s not so different from 2017.  The things you hoped would be different are pretty much the same.  The anticipation of a fresh start faded the moment you ate your first cookie, missed your first workout, lost your temper, swore in traffic.  

The appeal of New Years’ Day is the hope that things can be better, that they will be better. But New Years also carries the false message is that it’s entirely up to us to make it that way.  Your resolutions, no matter how good they are or how well you stick to them, may change your life, but they can’t save your life.  Only a Savior can do that.

If we think it’s up to us to set things right by our good actions and our good choices, we’ve forgotten about grace, which is the undeserved favor of God. And if we think things will never be any better, we’ve also forgotten grace, which says we receive the favor of God. Without grace, we’re sunk.

God saved you by his special favor when you believed.  And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.  Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.  For we are God’s masterpiece.  He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.  Ephesians 2:8-10

We’re saved because of grace, the magnificent work of God, which we’re given simply because He loves us.  And as part of that salvation, we are made new.  Given a fresh start.  A new beginning.  

Those who become Christians become new persons.  They are not the same anymore, for the old life is gone.  A new life has begun!      2 Corinthians 5:17

We are created anew, born again, to live an entirely new life.  Grace opens the door to all the promise and expectation that we long for when we crave a new beginning.  A fresh start brings with it new hope, new expectations that God will bring about all that He has promised. “This expectation will not disappoint us.  For we know how dearly God loves us” (Romans 5:5).  These are not feeble wishes that have no chance of fulfillment.  This is confident expectation anchored on God, the Almighty, the Lord of Heaven and Earth.

So if you’re feeling let down, disappointed, hopeless, may I remind you of grace?  It’s true that we aren’t yet all that we should be.  But it’s also true that we aren’t yet all that we will be.  Because there is grace.  Grace that’s been freely given, has paid our ransom, has secured our pardon, has set us free, has delivered us into all the newness and fullness of life that God intends and desires for us.  

For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.  John 1:16 ESV

 

Normally it takes eleven days to travel from Mount Sinai to Kadesh-barnea, going by way of Mount Seir.  But forty years after the Israelites left Mount Sinai, on a day in midwinter, Moses gave these speeches to the Israelites, telling them everything the Lord had commanded him to say… “When we were at Mount Sinai, the Lord our God said to us, ‘You have stayed at this mountain long enough.  It is time to break camp and move on.’”  Deuteronomy 1:2-3, 6-7

In writing their history, Moses reminded the Israelites that an eleven day journey took them forty years.  Why?  Because when they got to Kadesh-barnea, they second guessed God.  They had almost arrived where the Lord was leading them, and they grew afraid. Fear tends to magnify the power of our adversaries and minimize the power of our God.

God had already revealed Himself more powerful than the mightiest army on earth.  He had brought the Israelites from slavery to a place of abundant richness, saturated with life and the promise of more life.  This is His intention for all of us.  It’s what He held out in offering to them.  It’s what they turned away from.  Their disbelief called into question the character, the power, and the love of God.

The consequence was that none of that generation would enter the promised land. None of them would see God do what they didn’t believe He could do, except for Joshua and Caleb, whose confidence in God never wavered.   No one else would move beyond the desert to the fruitful richness that was their birthright as descendants of Abraham.

During all that time of wandering in the wilderness, they were always circling around the edges of the Promised Land.  They were on the periphery of the blessing and goodness that God intended for them.  Every funeral reminded them that the consequence of unbelief is that it leads death.

Unbelief continues to hinder the progress of God’s children today.  It trips us up.  It sends us on detours to places we never should have wandered.  It erects roadblocks as big as mountains.  We’re unable to move into God’s promised blessings because we don’t believe that God can or will deliver the goods.  Or maybe because we don’t really believe the promises apply to us.

Remember those Christmas movies you were watching just a week ago?  “Faith is believing even when your common sense tells you not to” – Miracle on 34th Street.  “Seeing isn’t believing.  Believing is seeing” – The Polar Express.  The message of Christmas is to believe.  If the world gets it, how have we missed it?

About 700 years before Jesus was born, God told the prophet Isaiah what He was going to do in the future so that when the people saw it come to pass, they would believe and know that He alone is God (Isaiah 43:10-12). When Jesus was born, an angel told some shepherds to go see their Savior.  He said, “You will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger” (Luke 2:12). He told them the sign ahead of time so that when they saw it, they would believe that everything else he had told them was true.

Jesus is the sign, the proof that God will keep each one of His promises.  He fulfilled all of the prophecies that were written about His birth, His life, His death, and His resurrection. He’s the physical, visible evidence that God has also done the invisible things He promised.  He’s forgiven us and freed us from sin.  He’s loved us with an unstoppable, never-ending love.  Jesus is also our confidence that God will do what we have not yet seen Him do.  One day, He will bring us to be with Him.  One day, He will restore everything to its original goodness and glory.

Maybe as 2018 begins, you find yourself afraid to take possession of the land, to claim all that you’re entitled to as God’s son or daughter.  Maybe there’s a mountain of doubt that you need to leave behind.  Maybe unbelief needs to die so you can move on.  The Promised Land still awaits you.  It’s the immeasurable richness of God’s love and goodness, His uncontested Kingdom where all is as it should be, our inheritance and our home forever.

Have faith in God.  I assure you that you can say to this mountain, “May God lift you up and throw you into the sea,” and your command will be obeyed.  All that’s required is that you really believe and do not doubt in your heart.  Mark 11:22-23