Tag: Future

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Ambiance of the future city.

Reading Time: 3 minutes 
“No longer will you need the sun to shine by day, nor the moon to give its light by night, for the Lord your God will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. Your sun will never set; your moon will not go down. For the Lord will be your everlasting light. Your days of mourning will come to an end.” Isaiah‬ ‭60:19-20‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Isaiah gets to describe some environmental aspects of the future city of God. For the past seventy+ years folks have been describing the future of humanity. It’s been quite the phenomenon to project what people think is a possibility.

Writers and screenwriters, with books and movies have been guessing at it for a long time. Many are dystopian and dark. Some are fantastically modern, with A.I., robots and super utopian possibilities. I think of authors like George Orwell, in his book 1984, written in 1949 describes a horrible version of government and “big brother.” It was so bizarre to experience 1984 and be thankful that most of Orwell’s predictions had not come true.

There’s plenty of hope-filled, peaceful projections as well. Most of these are about everyone being blandly similar in a weird idealistic socialism kind of way. And of course, these rosey projections have all solved our selfishness and greed, hate and murderous nature which magically translates into “fixing” the environment.

Isaiah, hearing this straight from God himself takes a completely different approach. He defines the future, for the people of God, as good as God himself! These couple of verses seem to defy our understanding of even light itself. Isaiah just announces, “you’ll no longer need the sun or the moon!” What? Wow. Way to go God. As Jesus himself said, He is the light of the world, and in Him there is no darkness (literally and metaphysically). This future city, this New Jerusalem – heaven itself, will be absolutely lit by God who is everlasting light. And this is just one aspect of the future for believers. Those who love sunshine and light will be so happy 😁- me with 🤚🏼 raised.

This is a major benefit to those who know God and believe in Jesus! God has a beautiful future planned. Where all sin, all suffering, all pain and all mourning will not exist. You may think it’s impossible, but God created everything we’ve ever seen or experienced in this world. And He created us in perfection with none of the dark shadows and downsides to our existence. Sin, our sin, is what changed all that. With sin permanently removed from the equation – perfection in all things will RESET back to the original plan.

Prayer

Dad,
Life, here on earth, with all of its beauty and splendor must pale in comparison to heaven and the new earth. This is the only the reflection. And life, even living within the confines of the curse, is also a unique and amazing experience. One the angels, who were also created, will never experience. Of course it is filled with horrendous acts of hate and depravity, but it is also filled with tremendous acts of love and goodness. I see both just walking my own neighborhood! In this strange, paradox of mystery it is hard to look outside of my circumstances and daily situations to see you at work redeeming and saving us. However, I know your Word is true and I know that you are trustworthy. Both have been proven and experienced over the past forty-five years since you saved me. Living here and thinking about this future utopia of grace in your presence is hard. Yet, taking just a few moments to clear away all that is happening in my world, and reading Isaiah’s optimistic words I can see the future – and it will be spectacular!

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Someone’s gotta do it.

Reading Time: 2 minutes 
“Discipline your children while there is hope. Otherwise you will ruin their lives.” Proverbs‬ ‭19:18‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Discipline your kid!

Discipline- yasar: to discipline, chasten, admonish. While there is a thread – tiqvah: cord of waiting – qavah: wait.

It is translated as “hope.” Interesting that the Aramaic word for discipline is to “bind.” The Hebrew language is a language of imagery and built around words that illicit emotion and deep stories of the past. These words are like that. In dealing with sons, we would say children because it’s applicable, there is a stern parental instruction given.

Bind your kid now in the hope, the “cord of waiting,” that it will save their life! Sure discipline sounds better, even harsh chastening sounds better than tying your kid up until they learn to behave.

Here’s the point, someone’s gotta do it!

Most children will not discipline themselves! I say most because I have come across the rare and extraordinary child that has a social perception and sense of self awareness at a very young age to behave pretty much on their own. I WAS NOT that child.

Either a good, loving parent teaches, models, and corrects bad behavior or attitudes or someone later will do it for them. That will likely be a future police or parole officer.

Some parents have it very hard when faced with a little bully or bad seed, but it’s still their job to help their own child, protecting them from their own poor decisions in the future. The discipline, the hard conversations, and natural consequences done at age appropriate moments may slow or stop their self-driven demise.

All my parents, my adopted mom and three different dads tried their best to teach, even discipline me. But too often they had their own demons and lacked self discipline for themselves. All five of my parents had childhood struggles or like the prodigal son, ran off to live their own version of “freedom.” So, I wasn’t exactly given the gift of discipline and I would have ruined my own life if it weren’t for Jesus rescuing me. For our own children, I credit the well balanced serving of discipline to Robin. Her parents gave her the best kind of loving discipline- solid boundaries until she was old enough to make decisions for herself. FYI, keeping Robin from bowling alleys and movies did not ruin her life!

Prayer

Dad,
It was tough learning some kind of discipline at fifteen instead of five. And since I hated team sports, I didn’t even get the chance to be coached. So I took longer to catch on and my life shows the discipline-deficiencies even today. Yet, I am thankful you got a hold of me when you did. It looked like it would have gone bad much faster as I went through my angsty teens. Thank you for that. And thank you for “binding” me with a cord of waiting while you worked on me!

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HOPEBROKER

Reading Time: 3 minutes 
“If you want to be my disciple, you must, by comparison, hate everyone else—your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple. And if you do not carry your own cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple.” Luke‬ ‭14:26-27‬ ‭NLT‬‬

​All or nothing.

Yes, this is the part of the gospel story that we don’t often talk about. A relationship with God is not only primary, it’s all consuming. It is an all or nothing situation! Jesus saying, “by comparison,” our love for God, our consuming desire to follow, obey and dedicate our entire life to him makes it look like we don’t give a rip about all the other family responsibilities, including: dad, mom, wife kids and siblings. I would guess even grandparents, but they are not mentioned 😬. There are other Bible references that discuss this. Like, “eat of my flesh, drink of my blood” verses. Or, “be hot or cold, but never lukewarm.”

This idea that we are in and committed or were not and it’s all just a religious show. That ought to get our attention, right?

And, Jesus goes on to tell this crowd that is following him, “Count the cost first.” Jesus tells two examples, “who builds a building, or goes to war,” without figuring out what it costs, what it takes to win? I remember arguing this point with friends, especially in giving high pressure “altar” calls or guilt drives to make decisions for Christ.

Should someone believe in Christ, YES. Should they make a decision to follow Christ, YES. Shouldn’t they also count the cost, YES as well.

When I said yes to Jesus I didn’t know enough to look forward and see what it would cost me to follow him, especially thinking it would cost my entire life! But, you need to understand, I came to Christ knowing my life to that point felt WORTHLESS. And, I had no ability to see anything in my future but a giant black wall. No dreams of a career, marriage, kids, or white picket fence. From my perspective, there was no future! I was a broke beggar, so there was only nothing or with God – everything.

Yet still, I knew what I was doing; what I was giving up as well as receiving. I was giving up my life in exchange for God becoming my Dad, the father I never had. At that point, I had only experienced two loser Dads, the third being “psychopath Ben,” would come later.

If anyone is going to pressure folks into making a decision, I want it to be God himself, pushing and wooing – pitching His love and abundant grace. Not the fire escape plan or promises of prosperity and the “good life.” A relationship with God isn’t a way to escape hell, it’s walking with Him for eternity. Jesus promised an abundant life but it’s only after completely giving and surrendering our own life.

Yes, I’m all in and wouldn’t have it any other way. For me it’s not hating the family relationships in comparison, it’s more like hating the American Dream that everyone else seems driven to still pursue. In comparison to loving Jesus, I decided to hate the high paying cushy job, the open-space, multiple bathroomed house, two pets, multiple marriages, 2.5 kids and some grandchildren! I only wanted God and whatever He had for me. It is ironic, no, pure-comedy, that God gave me a job Pastoring people, one-wife-for life, kids, grandkids and a couple of dogs in a house with three bathrooms and a pool in the backyard! Figured that one out.

Prayer

Dad,
Really. How did I end up with so much when I started with so little? I had nothing. I was nothing. I was invisible and liked it that way. Now….well, I am not invisible that’s for sure. And I annoy people by being too chatty, too friendly, too weird and tell way to many stories that no one wants to listen to! Oh, the humor of heaven has been poured out on me. I got old and have stuff. I never imagined that possibility. I had no dreams and no hope. You… you gave me all of that and more. I am a hope broker because I was broke and you gave me the greatest gift of all – hope.

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Journal entry from Ezekiel in 593 bc

Reading Time: 3 minutes 
“On July 31 of my thirtieth year, while I was with the Judean exiles beside the Kebar River in Babylon, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God. This happened during the fifth year of King Jehoiachin’s captivity. (The Lord gave this message to Ezekiel son of Buzi, a priest, beside the Kebar River in the land of the Babylonians, and he felt the hand of the Lord take hold of him.)” Ezekiel‬ ‭1:1-3‬ ‭NLT‬‬

​On a nice, warm, summer day back in 593 bc Ezekiel is out by a river in Babylon. He tells us that they had been in captivity or exile for five years at this point. We are reading a journal entry of a man that lived over 2600 years ago! He writes about this extraordinary vision as he looks over the river and up into the sky. And, he knows it’s a message and feels the hand of God on him. Chilling right? Then, for the next several verses, Ezekiel describes what he sees.

I’ve got to tell you, I read this as a new believer and could not make any sense of it AT ALL. And, I remember thinking, “who CAN make sense out of this?” It kind of blew my mind when a special speaker came through our church and asked us, “as an ancient observer, how would you have described something “futuristic,” maybe something that would not exist for thousands of years ahead.” Like a vision from someone who travels through time? Whoa. I would never have imagined something so syfi, so cool.

I mean 593 bc could not have had, would not have had any modern day equipment, especially something that could fly! This was a theory I had never thought about – and I liked it! Is it true? I have no idea. Could Ezekiel have been describing a modern Black Hawk helicopter? The guest speaker seemed to think it could have been. Ezekiel could only use words of things that existed in his time to describe what he saw – most of which are animals with a mixture of human faces or features that only the great beasts of his day had. Rotor blades back then could only be described as wings – like a giant dragonfly!

It turns out the modern helicopter may have been designed by studying the dragonfly (The world’s leading helicopter manufacturer, Sikorsky, finished the design of one of their helicopters by taking the dragonfly as a model, IBM, which assisted Sikorsky in this project, started by putting a model of a dragonfly in a computer (IBM 3081)).

Yeah, Ezekiel could have been seeing a futuristic scene of a war and God was telling him to write it down and even share it with the leaders of Israel. This was not just a fanciful dream and Ezekiel wasn’t trippin on some wild mushrooms. There was a reason for it. Many of Ezekiel’s visions were straight out of scenes from the apocalypse, the end times, the final days of the earth and its struggle against evil.

There have been so many possible interpretations and theories of these stunning visions and when they come true in real life, folks will be able to say, “oh, that’s what Ezekiel saw!” So, if you just recently turned thirty, just know this is the kind visionary of stuff you can look forward to! j/k.

Unless I’m joining God as a warrior in his army, I’m not sure I want to be there when this future scene takes place, especially if it’s some kind of global world war. Either way, I know God has got this, He’s in control.

PRAYER:

Dad,
Wow! These Ezekiel (and others) visions are so amazing. We can only wait and watch as you bring about the finality of your grand story, the epic war and peace, the ultimate love and justice of all things! It’s all there – all written out beforehand for everyone, anyone to read and see for themselves. Either folks have heard or have seen your truth and make a decision. All of us have been given ample time and opportunity to do so. I am so very grateful for your Word and the plans you have for me and the entire world.