Christian hope

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Swallowed up by Life

Interesting.

Two incidents within one week. Both observing the same milestone. But one person looks at life ebbing away. The other looks at life lived even more abundantly.

At a birthday dinner for a friend celebrating 60, the talk naturally turned to retirement. With this group of friends, retirement is anything but “retiring”. Instead, it is more opportunities, another chapter to be written with vigor, new paths to follow in great anticipation.

Just a few days later, flipping through channels, I stopped at a movie and listened to one of the characters wailing about her upcoming 60th birthday; she felt she was shriveling up and her life was pretty much finished.

One saw death. The other sees life growing ever more abundant.

While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life. God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.
2 Corinthians 5:4-5 (NLT)

(I suppose everyone over thirty groans and sighs sometimes because of a mortal body … )

This chapter is discussing the day when each one of us takes down her earthly tent and moves to an eternal body made by God to live in the eternal. In the NIV version, verse 5 reads:

So that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

One of my favorite phrases in the Bible! Swallowed up by life. What an exciting description of what will happen at the end of my earthly days! Hmmm. Maybe I want that on my headstone … or on that little memory card you’ll get at the funeral home … oh … I digress.

Back to the subject for today. I know this passage is talking specifically about death, taking down our tents here and moving on to what Jesus has prepared for us. But this phrase is so powerful that it often comes back to me when I think about my living now. The word used here for “swallowed” is the same one used in 1 Corinthians 15:54, “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

This is what I want to happen, even while I’m still on this earth. I want all that is mortal in me to be swallowed up by Life.

And God has promised this will happen for those who come to Him. It begins as soon as we open ourselves to the work of the Holy Spirit. The life we live becomes the new life Christ gives us. It begins to happen Now.

My selfishness and limited ability to love swallowed up by His love
My brokenness swallowed up by His wholeness and healing
My weakness swallowed up by His strength
The acts of my sinful nature swallowed up by the fruits of the Spirit.

Lord Jesus, you are the Way, the Truth, the Life. Let my mortal be swallowed up by your Life.

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The Gift and the Glory – Part 2

Ever since 2 Corinthians 3 found me, I have been in awe of the truth that we who have turned to the Lord reflect the Lord’s glory [and] are being transformed into his likeness with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

Did you catch that? He created us in His image to begin with, then we pretty much ruined it, and now His purpose is to restore us to that image of His own glory.

This has completely changed my former thoughts about glory. First, I always thought the attribute of glory belonged to God alone … but there’s a long list of Scriptures that say it’s meant for us to share, too.

My NLT Word Study System says the Greek word used here for “glory” is a noun meaning “radiance or splendor, with a strong association of importance or display of power. It refers to eye-catching, wondrous beauty, perhaps with a focus on the object shining or reflecting light. Glory means ascribing honor or praise, emphasizing that the person being honored is powerful, beautiful, important.”

Whew. Radiance, splendor, importance, power, wondrous beauty. All of those things, we know, find their ultimate expression in God.

But … all of those things in ME ?

Second, my idea of the glory awaiting followers of Jesus was that it was some reward in heaven, when we will be transformed and made perfect. But this is His plan NOW — He reclaimed and brought us back from the kingdom of darkness so that He can transform us into His glorious image once again. And He’s not waiting — He’s doing it NOW.

And this is the secret: Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing his glory.

The Spirit of Christ that brought you a new life is the One who is now transforming you into His image. Hebrews says the Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God. And the Son lives in us.

Isn’t that amazing?

Ann Voskamp, in her very poetic book, One Thousand Gifts, says:

          He means to rename us—to return us to our true names, our truest
          selves. He means to heal our soul holes … He means to fill us with glory
          again.

In 1 Corinthians, the apostle Paul quotes the Scriptures from Isaiah:

No eye has seen, no ear has heard,
    and no mind has imagined
what God has prepared
    for those who love him.

Yes! This is hard to imagine. I know me. I know what I once was. And now He is transforming me into the likeness of God, planting in ME the glory that shines in the Lord of the Universe?  This is astounding.

Yet, Paul goes on to say, because we have received God’s Spirit, we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us.

I want to understand. I want to know the wonderful gifts that He’s prepared for me.

Receiving a new life. Inheriting His riches, hope, and power. Transformed into His likeness. Created first in His glorious image … ruined … now being restored.

How can we ignore such a gift?

Spirit, help us believe and understand.

　

　***

Scripture: 2 Corinthians 3:18 (NIV); Colossians 1:27: Hebrews 1:3; 1 Corinthians 2:9,12 (all NLT)

More Scriptures about the glory planned for us: John 17:22; Romans 5:2; Romans 8:16-18; Romans 9:23; 1 Corinthians 2:7; 2 Corinthians 4:17; 1 Thessalonians 2:12; 2 Thessalonians 2:14; Hebrews 2:10; 1 Peter 4:14; 2 Peter 1:3-4

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Gazing at the invisible

He was only 18 months when the first “incident” occurred, and from that point forward, I noticed that my youngest grandson has a special gift: He sees birds. Not the kind of seeing that we do when someone says, “Look! There’s a woodpecker at the suet.” No, this little boy sees birds that the rest of us miss.

On that Sunday afternoon we were in the front yard, involved in some kind of game, and suddenly my grandson said, “Look!” and pointed upward. There, so far above us that I had to search for a moment to find it, was a bird drifting serenely on the currents. My daughter ran into the house for the binoculars and identified it as a bald eagle, a rare sighting for our area.

Such incidents have happened often enough in the past year that I’m fairly certain:  This boy has eyes on the top of his head. He may seem to be intent on his sandbox or spraying everyone with the garden hose, but suddenly he calls attention to something in the sky. Everyone else is absorbed with what’s going on here at ground level, but his eyes are catching those things above us that we would otherwise miss.

I’d like to have his sight, see things far beyond ground level. Even when I’m totally involved in day-to-day work and busyness, troubles and pleasures, I’d like to be able to catch sight of the realm beyond the earthly, temporal, and finite.

We are not just waiting for some far-off day when we’re ushered into a perfect place called heaven. The kingdom of heaven is now. Jesus entered this world and established His kingdom and it is here. When God adopted you as his child, the Spirit opened a new dimension of life for you.

The apostle Paul put it this way:

we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.

Isn’t that an interesting choice of words? We fix our gaze — words that imply seeing — on things that cannot be seen.

Hebrews 11 recounts all the trouble Moses had with Pharaoh when the Israelites wanted to leave Egypt, but he did not fear the ruler’s anger. He kept right on going because he kept his eyes on the one who is invisible.

Apparently, there are two kinds of sight: Eyes that see things we touch and eat and feel and own.  And eyes of faith, that see invisible things that last forever.

I know it’s easy to lose sight of Jesus’ kingdom and the One who is invisible.

I know our days get so busy and we are besieged by so many responsibilities and demands that sometimes we feel as though we can’t think clearly.  I know that sometimes troubles hang like a heavy fog that keeps us from seeing any clear path.

But if you look at the context of both these passages, the writers are saying that this is how we will get through our troubles, this is how we can cope with earthly life, this is what keeps us going — seeing the invisible.

I want eyes to gaze at the invisible, eyes to look beyond ground level and see Jesus’ kingdom more clearly.

May the Spirit grow eyes on the tops of our heads.

** 

Scripture: 2 Corinthians 4:18; Hebrews 11:27 (both NLT)

　

　

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The Ultimate Hope for the Thirsty

And what is the end of our story? It is that we will no longer be thirsty. You’ve heard the statement again and again, There will be no tears in heaven. Scriptures also say, There will be no thirst in heaven.

(This is why I wondered: was there thirst in the Garden of Eden? Or did that come only after man broke his relationship with God?)

A number of references in Revelation tell us that our thirst will be satisfied in our Father’s new heaven and new earth. And while this book’s symbolism and metaphors and prophetic language are often difficult to understand, this is clear: those who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb will never again know hunger and thirst.

There will be no parched ground, no wanderings in wilderness, no desolation in the deserts that we now experience. We will never again feel our life ebbing away; we will never again wander, homeless and hungry.

Our Lord says,

“…Look, I am making everything new! … I am the Alpha and the Omega — the Beginning and the End. To all who are thirsty I will give freely from the springs of the water of life.

All who are victorious will inherit all these blessings, and I will be their God, and they will be my children.”

That’s where we’re headed, children of God.

The rivers of eternal life are already flowing within us. Drink deeply and with joy.

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Scripture: Revelation 7:14,16 (NIV); Revelation 21:5-7 (NLT)

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Light for the world, in a clay pot

It’s rainy and gray here today. AGAIN. And, I admit, that is sometimes how I feel spiritually, too. Not at all like a city on a hill that gives light to everyone around me. More like a fragile clay jar, with plenty of cracks.

Look back at that verse in 2 Corinthians 4 once again:

We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.

It is God’s power that makes us a light, even the light of the world! Any light that shines from me is his light, his alone.

Here’s a most amazing statement: We are being changed into the image of our Lord.

And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.

Read more about this in 2 Corinthians Chapter 3. We who have turned to the Lord have had the veil of unbelief ripped away. Satan no longer has the power to blind us. We are free to see and reflect God’s glory. And the Spirit is making us like him, transforming us into his image.

The Greek word that is translated here as “changed”  means “to change fundamentally and completely from one state to another.”  Wow.  He is changing Me to Him.

Does that change your picture of yourself?

We are not merely disciples of a great teacher, struggling along, trying to do the “right” things, trying (under our own steam) to be “good enough” and be like Jesus.

Change that picture to this: We have been claimed by God and are being transformed by his Spirit within us into the likeness of the Lord we follow.

Yes, these are bold claims, but we’re talking about the power and plan of the Lord of the Universe. He can do whatever he chooses, and He is not restricted by our humanness. He chooses to plant his Spirit within us, to show his power through us, and to shine his light into this world through his children.

Doesn’t that give you goose bumps?

　

Scripture: 2 Corinthians 4:7, 2 Corinthians 3:18 (both NLT)