DAILY DEVOTIONAL – May 18, 2021
“Here and There”
Prayer: God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, You hold our life in Your hands. As the psalmist says in Psalm 31:15, “My times are in your hands.” Yet, Lord, we confess that many times we worry about tomorrow and wonder if You are with us. By Your grace and by the power of Your Spirit, grant to us the joy of living in the truth of our salvation found in the death and resurrection of Jesus, Your Son, our Lord. Amen.
Scripture: John 5:25-27
25 Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. 27 And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.
Devotional – “Here and There”
Have you ever wanted or felt like you really needed to be in two places at once? You really need and want to be here right now, but you also really need and want to be there as well. Of course, technology has certainly given us a convincing veneer of being able to be two places at once. At the same, our ability to make video calls, text message, email, and communicate instantly with people anywhere in the world the moment we want or need to, has greatly deteriorated our ability to be fully and truly present in mind and attention with where we are physically at the moment or with whom we are physically in front of at the moment.
There are plenty of serious studies and reports out there that can show you just how more disconnected we have become because of the very technologies that have connected us with others like never before. Humans were not created to be two places at once, so whenever we try, things are not as they should be.
That being said, there is one way (and only one way) that we can and should be two places at once!
Colossians 3:1-4 reveals this mystery to us when it says, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”
We exist simultaneously in a singular reality. We live now in this life that God has given us, but that we have broken and that will come to an end because of our sin, and at the same time we live as risen and ascended saints of heaven itself. Jesus told His disciples just before going to the cross in John 15, “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” How we live, how we think, what we prioritize and all that we do should find their locus in the paradox of knowing that because our life is hidden in Christ who has risen from the dead, our future life is both one to come and one that has already begun.
Christ is our life now and is also coming again very soon to both judge the world and take us into the eternal life we have already been given in Him. Jesus Christ was and is the eternal Son of God who was both begotten of His Father from eternity and who was also born of woman, the promised Savior of the world who would live to die only to live again, and for those who are His disciples and have been raised with Christ, we live this life He has given us both here on earth and there with Christ who has ascended back to glory in the very presence of God. As Jesus said in our text for today, “a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.”
The fact that God is with us now because we have already been raised with Christ into the very presence of God Himself, is a mysterious reality that should have very real consequences on our life. It is not possible to both have eternal life now and still live the same way we always have. Christ was born, was crucified and buried, and rose again on the third day in order to give us the hope of eternity that resolves our worries of tomorrow and sets us free from the prison of yesterday so that we experience His peace and joy today.
A life lived apart from Christ is a life lived only for the here and now. It is a life lived in the constant uncertainty of what tomorrow might bring. It is a life cheapened and emptied by the daily routine and futility of trying to bring life meaning and significance. It is a reactive life consumed with making the most out of what you have because you don’t know what tomorrow may take away. This is not how it should be nor how it has to be. Jesus says in John 10:10, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
A life lived with Christ and in Christ is a life lived in eternity and for eternity. It is a life lived in the constant certainty of God’s love and salvation, regardless of what tomorrow brings. It is a life enriched and overflowing by the excitement and suspense of following the One whom the waves obey, and a life given heavenly purpose and meaning as we surrender everything into His hands. It is a proactive life consumed with making the most out of the time we have by serving the God who has given us life and has seen each one of our days before one of them came to pass. It is a life lived in fear and wonder of God’s merciful power, and a life that charges fearlessly into tomorrow because we know and believe as the Scriptures say in Psalm 37:23-24
The steps of a man are established by the Lord,
when he delights in his way;
though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong,
for the Lord upholds his hand.
I pray you find some time to separate yourself to God, in His Word, and let the full weight of His glorious and mysterious grace settle in your heart and mind. I pray you have made or will make room for the Spirit of God, who is with you, to work out the eternal life He has given to you in His Son Christ Jesus; a life and salvation that has already come to us, that has already begun, and that is also coming very soon.
Thanks for spending time with me today in God’s Word, and remember, that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today and has already taken care of tomorrow. Amen.
