Looking back and looking forward
‘O Lord, You are my God; I will exalt You and praise Your Name... You
have done marvellous things’ (Isaiah 25:1). We remember what God has
done for us. He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to be our Saviour. We
rejoice in Jesus Christ who died for us. We rejoice in Jesus Christ who
rose again for us. We look forward to the return of our Lord Jesus
Christ. We look forward to the Day when ‘He will swallow up death for
ever.’ On that Day, ‘the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all
faces’. On that Day, we will look back and say, ‘Surely this is our God;
we trusted in Him, and He saved us.’ On that Day, we will ‘rejoice and
be glad in His salvation’ (Isaiah 25:8-9). Here and now, let us learn to
‘trust in the Lord’. We can trust in Him ‘for ever’. He is ‘the
everlasting Rock’- ‘the Rock of our salvation’ (Isaiah 26:4; Psalm
95:1).
Jesus Christ is our Saviour. Let us bring our song of praise to Him.
‘We boast of the Name of the Lord our God...Through the steadfast love
of the Most High’ we ‘shall not be moved’ (Psalms 20:7; 21:7). We do not
trust in things that ‘collapse and fall.’ We build on ‘the Rock’ (20:8;
Matthew 7:24-27; Psalms 18:1-3; 62:5-7). We ‘rejoice’ in our God. He
has made us ‘most blessed for ever’ (Psalm 21:1, 6; Ephesians 1:3).
Think of Jesus Christ your Saviour. He is absolutely trustworthy. He is
completely dependable. His love is an ‘unfailing love’ (Psalm 21:7). In
Him, there is salvation. In Him, there is joy. With His strong and
powerful love, He has saved us. He has given us ‘a new song’ to sing, ‘a
song of praise to our God’ (Psalm 40:1-3). Let us lift our hearts and
voices to Him in praise and worship: ‘Be exalted, O Lord, in Thy
strength! We will sing and praise Thy power’ (Psalm 21:13).
Come to Christ and dwell in the House of the Lord for ever.
God has given us a glimpse of a future which is heavenly, eternal and
glorious: ‘the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God -
It shone with the glory of God’. Is this ‘eternal life’ for everyone?
Will all people ‘dwell in the House of the Lord for ever?’ Will everyone
be saved? Is this what the Word of God teaches? ‘God wants everyone to
be saved.’ He wants everyone to ‘come to the knowledge of the truth’, to
‘come to repentance.’ Sadly, there are many who ‘refuse to love the
truth and so be saved’ (Revelation 21:10-11; John 3:16; Psalm 23:6; 1
Timothy 2:3-4; 2 Peter 3:9; 2 Thessalonians 2:10). Who will be saved? -
‘only those, whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life’. ‘Come’
to Christ - ‘Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they...may go
through the gates into the city’ (Revelation 21:27; 22:17,14).
Trusting in Christ’s love, we learn to love.
The Pharisees lived by law. Jesus lived by love. The law of God - ‘holy
and just and good’ (Romans 7:12) - had been distorted by the religious
hypocrites. They were saying, ‘love your neighbour and hate your enemy’
(Matthew 5:43). ‘Love your neighbour’ is found in Leviticus 19:18. ‘Hate
your enemy’is not found in the Old Testament. For the Jews, ‘neighbour’
meant their own kind. They wrongly concluded that Gentiles were to be
hated. Jesus’parable of the Good Samaritan makes it clear that we are to
love our enemies as well as our friends (Luke 10:25-37). Jesus’
disagreement is not with the law of God. It is with man’s misuse of it.
Jesus’teaching is simple - Love is not to be limited. It is demanding -
love is all-embracing. We dare not bring love within our reach. We
always fall short. We can only come to Christ. Confessing our lack of
love and trusting in His perfect love, we learn to love.
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