“And this,” replied Napoleon, sharply, “—this you call immortality!”4
Five thousand years is a long time for something crafted by man, but hardly a long time by God’s standards and certainly not immortal.
In 2 Peter 3:8, we read: “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” Time and space merge with God, and the immortality of the human soul is also timeless.
Peter in his first epistle amplifies this thought as he ponders the love of God to you and me.
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials (1 Peter 1:3–6).
Living for immortality.
Walking With God
January 11
One weekend as I was walking through the parking lot of a university campus, I came upon something that immediately caught my attention. The parking lot was only partially occupied, but in that lot was a husky young man having the time of his life by manipulating a tiny radio–controlled car. With his handheld control, he sent the car back and forth, weaving, turning, speeding, and slowing—all over the lot. He was obviously enjoying the fun and the sense of power for when I came back twenty minutes later, he was still there.
It seems to me that one might see such a scene as a parallel of life. We, like the little model car, are spinning all over the world, sometimes with purpose, sometimes without—going, coming, eating, sleeping, working, and enjoying recreation. All the while, up there is a power that watches over us so that we won’t smash up.
There’s a difference of course. We would not like it if God controlled us like the young man handled his model. We feel much better when God lets us run our own show. But most of us, in the back of our minds, want to believe that in the last analysis, God will step in if there’s a crisis.
This attitude could, I think, be described as “taking God for granted.” But I seem to hear the crashing interjection of the prophet Micah: “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).
God does not want to manipulate us or to be ignored by us. He wants to walk with us. The choice is ours.
A Glorious Vista
January 12
Joseph Mallord Turner, one of the finest and most famous of British artists, lived from 1775 to 1851. Turner was something of a prodigy as a painter, and his father, a barber, is said to have sold some of the lad’s sketches when he was twelve. Turner is best known for the brilliant and lavish colors of his landscapes and seascapes.
One day, so the story goes, a lady approached Turner, objecting that she did not see such brilliant colors occurring in nature. The artist’s simple but perceptive reply was, “Don’t you wish you did, Madam?”
The Apostle Paul expresses similar sentiments in a brief prayer recorded in Ephesians 1:18: “I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he [i.e. Jesus] has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints.” Paul later adds this similar prayer: “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power . . . to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ” (Ephesians 3: 17b–18). Paul is painting the spiritual landscape for his fellow Christians, and it contains all the colors of the rainbow.
God loves His children with an abundant, abounding love that truly passes understanding.
Simply put, God loves you and God loves me.
Have Patience
January 13
Sometimes having patience is one of the most difficult things in life. That’s why it’s called a virtue. As we age, patience becomes even more of a virtue, it seems, as there are issues we have to deal with unique to the aging process.
In the twelfth chapter of Romans, verse 12, the Apostle Paul calls for a type of patience many aging Christians that I know have shown in their daily living. He writes: “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.”
In Ephesians chapter 4, verses 1 and 2, the apostle adds this: “I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.”
The fortieth chapter of the prophet Isaiah concludes with words which are encouraging when we may come to those moments where we want to give up, to quit—“to throw in the towel” as is done in boxing. Isaiah writes: “Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (Isaiah 40:31).
Some days we just don’t feel like soaring, or running, or even walking, but the key to renewal, writes the prophet, is simply hope in the Heavenly Father. He understands, even when we feel like quitting. “Cast your cares [or burdens] on the Lord,” the Psalmist David writes, “and he will sustain you.”
The Ways of God
January 14
While on an overseas trip, I heard an intriguing story told to me by a proprietor of a tiny shop in Kowloon. He told me about a friend of his in northern India who had passed his academic examinations with flying colors and then accepted a good position in Calcutta, 36 hours by train from his home. On his first journey, the young man’s parents decided to accompany him.
Waiting to board the train, the young man became restless, pacing back and forth. Then he stopped to watch an elderly man squatting in a corner . . . apparently in quiet meditation. For a long time the old man didn’t move. Intrigued, the young man went over and said, “If you want to pray, why don’t you go to the God–House?”
“But God is everywhere,” was the simple reply.
So interested did the young man become with the praying person that when he finally looked around, the train was gone—with his parents on board. Bewildered, he berated the old man. “Why did you talk to me so long that I missed my train?”
“Do not fret, my son,” said the man. “All will be well.”
The youth didn’t think so as he was sending a wire to his parents to get off at the next city. But he did have cause for sober reflection when he later learned that a number of miles beyond the place his parents got off, a bridge was out. The speeding train had gone into a gorge, killing many. His plans and his life were changed because he stopped to watch a man pray.
His [God’s] eyes are on the ways of men; he sees their every step, says Job’s friend Elihu in the thirty–fourth chapter of Job. We dare not say that God is responsible for all that goes on in our world. Men build unsafe and poorly constructed bridges and buildings. These are simply facts of human life, as are other man–made tragedies.
The thirteenth chapter of Luke tells us that some in the crowd Jesus was addressing told Him of a group of Galileans in Jerusalem that had somehow run afoul of the Roman procurator, Pontius Pilate, the man who later sent Jesus to the Cross. Pilate ordered the execution of those Galileans. Those in the crowd who mentioned this story to Jesus thought their execution must have been due to some exceptional wickedness in their lives for God to allow such a tragedy to happen. “I tell you, no!” said Jesus; they were no more or less wicked than others of their compatriots at the time. He seemed to be saying, “Anyone can be killed . . . only God’s grace allows any to live.” Then he added this warning: