The Gospel

Quotations

By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestined unto everlasting life; and others foreordained to everlasting death.
The Westminster Confession of Faith, Ch. III:3

Those of mankind who are predestined unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to His eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of His will, hath chosen in Christ unto everlasting glory, out of His mere free grace and love, without any other thing in the creature as a condition or cause moving Him thereunto.
The Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689, III:5

Jonathan Edwards

The enjoyment of [God] is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husband, wives, or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows; but God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams. But God is the ocean.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

The Times We've Been Given -- Margeret Manning

In one of the climactic scenes of The Lord of the Rings, the young hobbit, Frodo, laments the world he sees around him with all the tragedy and darkness that has befallen him. Looking at the difficulty in continuing on the path laid out before him, Frodo mourns, “I wish it need not have happened in my time.” Gandalf the Grey, ever his wise mentor, consoles him with these words: “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, in which case you were also meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought.”(1)
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. I have often thought of this scene and these words as I look out onto our world. There are always crises of one sort or another that might make even the strongest among us pine for different times, crises that make us wish our journey would be a different and far more pleasant trip. The recent economic panic gives us one such contemporary example. The clamor for money belies our desire for some sense of security in a world that is far beyond our control. We long for a calmer time, when growth continued its steady increase and made the future look bright. But such is not the time that is given to us.
While our longing for something more, something different and something better, speaks to us of what should be, we often allow our longings to lead us beyond our present moment. We make ourselves impotent to the possibility of decision to make the best of the time that is given to us. Instead, we must resist the tendency to avoid our present circumstances by wishful thinking, and allow hope for something better to motivate us into action here and now with the time that is given to us.
When Jesus prayed what would be one of his last prayers prior to his crucifixion, he prayed for his disciples as he knew he would leave them to a task far greater and more difficult than they could possibly imagine. Did he pray that God would rescue them from the times they would face? Peter and others in this fellowship would soon be martyred as a result of their mission. Yet, Jesus doesn’t pray that they would be saved from the world in which they were living. Jesus prayed, “I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from evil.... As You did send Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world” (John 17:15-18).
Of course, as a direct result of their witness, a long line of faithful followers of Jesus would arise. Those who would also bear witness to the faith, hope, and love found in the Kingdom Jesus inaugurated in his life and ministry. Jesus provided his disciples with what they would need to make the best of the times they had been given. On the one hand, he encouraged them to find their peace and security in his life and ministry. “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). On the other hand, Jesus empowers his disciples by calling them to mission--to witness to him in the world, regardless of the tribulation they would find there. He called them to purposeful action, here and now, to share the good news to the world in desperate times.
Like Frodo and the other members of the Fellowship of the Ring, we can so easily look around us and see the peril of the journey in this world. Our desire to avoid difficulty and pain, and our longing for another kind of world often distracts us from doing God’s work in God’s world, regardless of the times at hand. Yet, our longings for what is good, beautiful, and right for our world do not have to lead us to flights of fantasy, or to wishful thinking. Rather, our longing for a better world should compel us to action as witnesses to the gospel as the force of good for our world. Indeed, our longings can lead us to decide what we can do to make the best of the times we’ve been given.

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