For March 18, 2023
Uncertainty and insecurity mars our fallen world, with the global pandemic, troubled global economy, financial upheaval, and global conflict. We want safety and security with some level of control—or predictability—over our personal, social, and financial well-being.
We want to return to “normal,” when life was more predictable. But fear, uncertainty, and helplessness make coping difficult in our modern day society. Some will look to family to fill the void, but will not find it there. For more often than not, our family members are broken and empty, seeking solutions to fill the void for themselves.
Some turn to friends and acquaintances for relief, but find that, as sin grows more rampant in our world each day, cold indifference is often the outcome, just as Jesus foretold in Matthew 24:12.
Others turn to professions with careers in science and medicine, business and enterprise, information technology, finance, sales and marketing, education and academia, law and politics, or sports, travel and entertainment to gain wealth, power, and influence hoping to fill the void. But then they discover that even after achieving those magnificent accomplishments, the void remains, and we feel empty, alone, and frustrated and realize we live in a cold, cruel, and unfulfilling world.
Some will try to escape their inner emptiness by splurging on the newest, biggest, and shiniest thing we can afford, convinced that it will bring us internal satisfaction and instant gratification. But inanimate objects will not comfort us like the wonderful blessing of God’s tender, loving companionship, and we feel more empty and unfulfilled.
When that does not work, we turn to sensual pleasures (i.e., gluttony, sex, pornography, marital infidelity, drugs, alcohol, other intoxicants, etc.) to find euphoria. However, we learn that our self-medicating, self-numbing, and self-gratifying will not quell our inner turmoil and spiritual suffering.
But we soon learn that a compulsive-addictive lifestyle will not give us the metaphysical relief we seek. Instead, it fosters counter-productive thoughts, speech, and conduct that promote our own self-destruction while contravening the overall safety and well-being for others as well.
Where should we turn for answers? By faith in God, we can find security and safety in an unpredictable world. But we must turn to Jesus Christ, as our personal Lord and Savior, and are Born Again. Then, at that precise moment, we can have eternal safety, security, and reliability.
God’s Holy Spirit fills the “God-size void” inside us to enliven (quicken) us spiritually. Instantly, we come to know His selfless love and experience His lasting peace, joy, fulfillment, and deep satisfaction as He transforms us into His new creations,
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NKJV)
From the beginning, God has had a perfect plan (or will) for His creation. He said, “Let there be!” and the heavens and earth; water and air; plants and animals appeared—instantly! Then He said, “Let us make!” and He combined clay with His eternal Spirit; breathing into His creation the “breath of life,” and thus the human species exists, and He said it was “very good!”
God designed His perfect plan for our welfare and benefit before He created the world, and He has not changed or rescinded it. God is sovereign, and everything that happens will bring about the fulfillment of that plan.
The fallen angels, Satan, our disobedience and subsequent Fall resulting in the interjection of sin and death, human free will and personal choice, wars, famine, and cataclysmic disasters can distract us from clearly seeing His glorious end, seemingly hijacking His beneficent will.
Yet, these factors do not escape His foreknowledge. The Lord will accomplish His perfect plan nonetheless, as one author observes,
The benefit of an emphasis on God’s decrees is that it helps us to realize that God does not make up plans suddenly as he goes along. He knows the end from the beginning, and will accomplish all his good purposes. This should greatly increase our trust in him, especially in difficult circumstances.1
Despite our failings, which are many, His unfailing plan will sustain us always,
The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, And He delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; For the Lord upholds him with His hand. I have been young, and now am old; Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, Nor his descendants begging bread. He is ever merciful, and lends; And his descendants are blessed. Depart from evil, and do good; And dwell forevermore. For the Lord loves justice, And does not forsake His saints; They are preserved forever, But the descendants of the wicked shall be cut off. Psalm 37:23-28 (NKJV)
I rejoice knowing there is a Beneficent Creator and Infinite Sustainer who is concerned about our personal welfare and is active in our daily lives. I do not rely on the capriciousness and unreliability of happenstance, fate, chance, or luck to govern the course of our human lives.
God’s unfailing design offers us the positive hope of a blessed future for this life,
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29: 11-13 (NKJV)
Yet, God has also planned a blessed hope for our eternal future with Him,
Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. John 14:1-3 (NKJV)
The Spirit of Christ within us gives hope for eternal life. This hope is our confident and joyful expectation of future blessing based on the certainty of our salvation through Christ and of the wonderful eternal future He is preparing for us.
Flesh and blood will not inherit the Kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 15:50) When our Lord calls us from labor to reward, we will experience the pinnacle of His redemptive plan where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest. (Job 3:17) Of this glorious transformation, the Scriptures attest,
So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. 1 Corinthians 15:54 (NKJV)
This is our present hope and eternal destiny or glorification. Then, God will give us immortal bodies that will resemble Christ’s resurrected body. Then we can experience God’s magnificent presence, free from sin, pain, and disease. We will see Him “as He is” and be like Him. (1 John 3:2)
Proud, self-righteous human endeavors will never invoke God’s favor, as does Calvary’s Cross. It has never been about us; it is about Jesus Christ, and our faith in Him vitalizes our being, position, conduct, and eternal destiny.
Those who will not acknowledge Him now will face Him as Eternal Judge then. However, we who love Him, and whose faith begins and ends with Him, He is our hope, peace, expectation, and glorious reward. Galatians 3:11 reads, “The just shall live by faith,” and 2 Corinthians 5:7 states, “We walk by faith, not by sight.”
God alone is in control. In Him, we can find peace, security, and fulfillment forever. All that is required is our complete surrender to His Lordship through Jesus Christ as Savior. Won’t you give Him your heart today and experience His lasting contentment?
What a Wonderful Savior!