Saturday, December 18, 2010

It's all About Jesus

You know, God doesn't ever stand still, nor let us do so.  He's blessed me so much this last year and the year before and the year before and the year before...   Constantly growing and changing me.  Boy am I glad!  Thank you lord Jesus!

I recently heard someone describe the Christian life as a trail toward God, where sometimes we walk forward and sometimes we slide back.  What a depressing thought!  Perhaps it's even possible to come to the end of life having gone so far backward that we are further from God than we started!  Well...  I don't believe it, from personal experience, I guess, as well as from a theology of God-centeredness.  I don't want anyone to believe in such a dreary picture of life.

Perhaps the path metaphor is somewhat accurate, but it's a path of hills and valleys.  Sometimes we're on a high point, and we can look down the road and see the glimmer of Jesus glory, and we're overwhelmed by His beauty and love and we run forward to be closer to Him.  But after a few steps we find ourselves going down-hill, perhaps sliding a bit on the loose gravel of sin.  Before we know it we're flat on our faces at the bottom of a valley, and it's dark down there!  We've got cuts on our hands and knees where we fell on the gravel when we tried to stand on our own pride.  Jesus seems so far away, and all we see ahead is the next steep mountain.

The important thing is to see the road going up the mountain, the Way to the Father.  The early church was often referred to as "followers of The Way."  I don't think that's chance.  Jesus said He was the Way...  if we follow Him, we are very literally "Followers of The Way."  And the Way leads us to the Father!  Perhaps it has valleys, and it's rough going, and we sin, and our flesh is wicked and deceitful, but we're on The Way!  We're going forward!

Through sorrows brought on by the sins of others, through highs of spiritual ecstasy, through sins of my own, through times when I can't hear His voice and others when I can feel him walking right beside me...   through all these things He is drawing me forward!  My life passes by, and what joy there is with growing older as I can see Jesus face growing clearer and larger in my view!

Walking down this path of life we can no more "backslide" away from Jesus than we can turn the hands of time backward and grow a year younger!  He is bringing us to Himself, and "He who has begun a good work in you will be faithful to complete it!"  So give Him praise when you stand on the peaks and feel the sun of his love on your face, but know that your life cannot stand still.  Even more, have joy when you find yourself in a dark valley, hurting and bleeding, because you have the sure knowledge that time is not standing still, and that the shuffling step of every minute is bringing you closer to the end of that road when you will see Jesus face to face!

Be blessed!

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