Best Life Later
Suffering, patience, and endurance...
These were the qualities that marked the people who really knew Jesus. Paul, Peter, James, John....these men served Jesus to the point of death and exile.
Jesus was like a rock dropped into water in the sense that the 120 people who stood with Him in the end spread out like ripples on the surface of the water. They made a large wave at first, washing over Greece, and Europe, Asia, and northern Africa.
The further from Jesus the ripples have traveled, the more we have lost of the original message. The more we have painted following Jesus to be about us, and less about Him and what the God of the universe is working out before our very eyes.
Being a Christian in America looks very little like it did for those disciples closest to Jesus. Very few of us have any idea that patience, endurance, and suffering are part of the CALLING to follow Jesus! We have bought hook, line, and sinker that we can have "Our Best Life Now." This is not the message of the apostles and disciples who were face to face with Jesus. They knew their best life happened at the end of the age, when Jesus would transition the world from a government of sin and self interest to His perfect government of love.
I am NOT going for my best life now. I want to follow Paul and Peter and James and John, men who were face to face with Jesus, who encountered Him for real. I want my best obedience now, I want a burning heart now, I want a true passion and desire for Jesus that is a living testimony that following Him isn't an add-on to a good life, but a radically different way of life.
There is a secret hidden in this choice that is not apparent to the outside observer: it is in this dying to yourself and living for the one who is the Beginning and End that real and lasting joy are found. Happiness is not the goal...joy, true contentment that I am living in agreement with the one who owns it all, is. Happiness may fade with the seasons, but real joy endures and grows like a fire.
The stage is being set for the events Jesus described in Matthew 24 and the book of Revelation. This is really the book of Acts, part II that we are watching unfold across the earth. The book of acts started with the quiet time in the upper room. A time of preparation for the storm that was about to come. Really knowing Jesus, and what it means to be a part of His plans is essential to staying steady in a time of global unsteadiness. This is what kept the disciples enduring to the end.
Revelation 1:9 I, John, am your brother and your partner in suffering and in God's Kingdom and in the patient endurance to which Jesus calls us. I was exiled to the island of Patmos for preaching the word of God and for my testimony about Jesus.
These were the qualities that marked the people who really knew Jesus. Paul, Peter, James, John....these men served Jesus to the point of death and exile.
Jesus was like a rock dropped into water in the sense that the 120 people who stood with Him in the end spread out like ripples on the surface of the water. They made a large wave at first, washing over Greece, and Europe, Asia, and northern Africa.
The further from Jesus the ripples have traveled, the more we have lost of the original message. The more we have painted following Jesus to be about us, and less about Him and what the God of the universe is working out before our very eyes.
Being a Christian in America looks very little like it did for those disciples closest to Jesus. Very few of us have any idea that patience, endurance, and suffering are part of the CALLING to follow Jesus! We have bought hook, line, and sinker that we can have "Our Best Life Now." This is not the message of the apostles and disciples who were face to face with Jesus. They knew their best life happened at the end of the age, when Jesus would transition the world from a government of sin and self interest to His perfect government of love.
I am NOT going for my best life now. I want to follow Paul and Peter and James and John, men who were face to face with Jesus, who encountered Him for real. I want my best obedience now, I want a burning heart now, I want a true passion and desire for Jesus that is a living testimony that following Him isn't an add-on to a good life, but a radically different way of life.
There is a secret hidden in this choice that is not apparent to the outside observer: it is in this dying to yourself and living for the one who is the Beginning and End that real and lasting joy are found. Happiness is not the goal...joy, true contentment that I am living in agreement with the one who owns it all, is. Happiness may fade with the seasons, but real joy endures and grows like a fire.
The stage is being set for the events Jesus described in Matthew 24 and the book of Revelation. This is really the book of Acts, part II that we are watching unfold across the earth. The book of acts started with the quiet time in the upper room. A time of preparation for the storm that was about to come. Really knowing Jesus, and what it means to be a part of His plans is essential to staying steady in a time of global unsteadiness. This is what kept the disciples enduring to the end.
Revelation 1:9 I, John, am your brother and your partner in suffering and in God's Kingdom and in the patient endurance to which Jesus calls us. I was exiled to the island of Patmos for preaching the word of God and for my testimony about Jesus.
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