Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Hebrews 10:19-25 ESV)
It seems we are all worried about the end of the world. Everything we hear is that the world is ending. Just look around you and see all of the end times predictions from the bible, and the world is ending on December 21, 2012 according to the Mayans. Of course they did not know about or include in their calculations daylight savings time, so the date of the actual end of the world according to the Mayans would have been in May so we missed that one. But aren’t we always hearing about how all of the events that are happening now are the predictors from the bible that the world is ending…
All of the events Jesus spoke of happened shortly after or during His life. Earthquakes, famines, the destruction of the temple all of these events happened. And yes they are happening, but Jesus made it clear to the disciples and we seem to miss that no one knows the time of the end, only God the Father, not even Jesus knows this! So how are we going to predict it correctly?
The one thing we as followers of the way, disciples of Christ can live in these times, whether they be the end times, or the in between times, or the beginning of the birth pangs, is how the believers are told to live in Hebrews, “hold(ing) fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another…” We can hope in the one who is faithful in His promises. God will not let us down. We can see over and over again how He has done what He said He would do. Hope is closer than we realize, and is bigger than anything that we can come up against.
Remember 1 Corinthians 13:13 “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” Most of us hear this passage of scripture at weddings, because it is about love, right? I don’t think so. Well ok yes it is about love and what we are if we do not have it and use it and show it to the world, but this passage, the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians is a passage about the end of times. And at the end of time, these three remain, faith, hope, and love. When the world has come to and end and Jesus has returned and we are all finally with God in the great feast that will last forever, everything else in this world will be wiped away except, faith, hope and love… So these three are really important, and what makes them so important to last? We do not create them on our own. They have to be gifted to us!
Our faith comes from God, and is a gift, which is nurtured and grows. Love is something we first received from God when we did not deserve it and were brought into His family. And hope it that reassurance that His promises are our promises and He will always be with us through all of the darkness our lives can bring us.
So know that your worth is in the fact that God created you and loves you. Not in what you have or have not done or what others say about you. And cling to the hope that He has given you, and is the reassurance that is always closer than you know.
aSacredRebel 