7-1-20 THOUGHTS

The first thing I saw this morning was a email from Brandon and Katie in the Ukrane.
Here’s Brandon’s start:
“This virus has changed the world in so many unexpected ways. Things will probably never go back to the way they were, but we are praying for when a certain flow of daily life returns. When there are fewer unknowns and we have more clarity on what we're doing tomorrow.
For now, we're more or less stuck here.”
Of course this is a very physical context.  But we identify in many ways don’t we?

Allow me to hijack Brandon’s words and put them into a different context..  a spiritual context.  In a sense, we have few unknowns and great clarity about our future.  We are only “stuck here” in the physical sense.  

I borrow from a future sermon.
My Past
Eph 2:1-3    And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,  2  in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3  Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
My Present
Eph 2:4-6    But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5  even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6  and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
My Future
Eph 2:7-8    so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.  8  For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;

A good old song says...  “Many things about tomorrow, I don’t seem to understand.  But I know who holds tomorrow, and I know who holds my hand!”
Ah, “THE AGES TO COME”!

My Prayer:
Thank you Oh God for all of your wonderful and sure promises.  Thank you for sustaining us in a world of confusion and uncertainty, but thank you also for showing us the ages to come.  Help us Oh God to see your promises, and be persuaded of them, and to embrace them, and confess that we are strangers and pilgrims on this earth.  Teach us to live heaven while we wait for eternity with you.                  

                         In Jesus name                  Amen