Glimpses of Truth
It’s Who You Know!
Another year is ready to be underway. Memories of the past--it’s great that we can remember. That reminds me of a little poem I read this past year. It goes something like this: “I do okay with my dentures; I see through my bifocals just fine; I have learned to live with my arthritis; but Lord, how I do miss my mind.” Memories of the Past! Some have been great and we would enjoy reliving them again and again; others we pray will never come our way again. The Past is just that, it’s past. So, onward we go. Some say, “where it stops nobody knows!” I beg to differ. Someone does know.
The Holy Spirit has it recorded in God’s Book, the Bible, telling us the confidence we can have for the future is not based on our ingenuity or determination, not on the economy or the stock market, not on the Democrats or Republicans, but on the love and mercy of God. There is nothing in this coming year—rising prices, unemployment, family problems—yes, NOTHING can change this solid hope.
Martin Luther struggled for years with the legalistic expectations of his religion, until he clearly understood that “the just shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17), and that “man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law” (Romans 3:28). Then he began to trust God’s grace rather than his own good works to save him. In 1529, Luther penned the famous hymn; “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” Let’s take a look at the second verse:
Did we in our own strength confide,
Our striving would be losing;
Were not the right Man on our side,
The Man of God’s own choosing.
Dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is He;
Lord Sabaoth His name,
From age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.
The prophet Jeremiah knew the secret. He said, ”Blessed (happy) is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is.” (Jeremiah 17:7) As believers in Christ we are to face this New Year in the Lord’s strength. He is our strength! We have none of our own. Don’t forget that.
If you are looking for a New Year with purpose, and I’m sure you are, then don’t make a resolution that might last a couple of weeks, but look for opportunities daily to be a God-controlled man, woman, or teenager. When I read about Paul in the Scriptures, I find that he was an amazing, dynamic Christian, not because of his character, or personality, or education, or his upbringing, but because he had a Purpose in his life. Whether the Apostle Paul was mending tents or writing a letter to an infant church or preaching to a crowd in the market place, he was driven by one all-consuming, all-controlling, dynamic purpose, and that was “to know God.” Paul expressed this purpose in Philippians 3:10, “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.”
You may or may not have a dynamic character or personality. But this one thing I know. If your ”Purpose” is that of the Apostle Paul, “to know God,” then your life for 2010 will be one that’s dynamic.
Philippians 3:13-14 says, “…but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” It’s Who you know that counts.
