24 The Last Night on Earth

Question 1: How about Romans 14:2 which says that weak people only eat vegetables?

Let’s read it:

Romans 14:1–3 NKJV

1 Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things. 2 For one believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables. 3 Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats; for God has received him.

The principle that’ we’ve been stressing it to read the whole book when we have a question about something. To answer our question about Romans 14 we need to visit the first letter to the Corinthian church that Paul wrote roughly a year earlier than this letter to the Romans.

1 Corinthians 8:1 (NKJV)

1 Now concerning things offered to idols...

This part of the letter is about meat offered to idols and here is the advice he gives the Corinthian church:

1 Corinthians 8:4 NKJV

4 Therefore concerning the eating of things offered to idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no other God but one.

1 Corinthians 8:7–10 NKJV

7 However, there is not in everyone that knowledge; for some, with consciousness of the idol, until now eat it as a thing offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. 8 But food does not commend us to God; for neither if we eat are we the better, nor if we do not eat are we the worse. 9 But beware lest somehow this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to those who are weak. 10 For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol’s temple, will not the conscience of him who is weak be emboldened to eat those things offered to idols?

When we compare Romans 14 to 1 Cor 8 we see that Paul is not saying that vegetarians are weak, but that the new Christian that is still “weak” in the faith, may find it easier to eat only vegetables rather than try to ensure they don’t eat any meat offered to idols.

Question 2: Is the parable of the rich man and Lazarus literal or figurative?

You can find the story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31. We could make some assumptions, but it would probably be best to read it directly from the Bible:

Luke 16:19–31 (NKJV)

19 “There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. 20 But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate,

21 desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. 22 So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried.

23 And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. 24 “Then he cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue;

for I am tormented in this flame.’ 25 But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented.

26 And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.’ 27 “Then he said, ‘I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house,

28 for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.’ 29 Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them he them.’

30 And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31 But he said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.’ ”

Let’s look at a few details:

According to Luke 15 and 16, Jesus’ audience were publicans and sinners, Jesus’ disciples, a random crowd of people, and the Pharisees. And in verse 14 Jesus seems to be addressing this parable specifically to the Pharisees.

At the time Jesus was on the earth, there was a pagan idea that when you died you went to the fire to purify the soul. Jesus used this pagan story that some Jews had accepted to make a point.

At the same time, Jesus was addressing another false teaching that was going around—the idea that if you were rich, God must be blessing you. In this parable Jesus has a rich man who is clearly not blessed by God.

If you read Luke 15 and 16 you’ll notice that Jesus has been telling a lot of parables. A parable is a story from which you are suppose to get spiritual lessons. There’s the story of the woman who lost the coin, the shepherd who lost the sheep, the prodigal son, and a few others. In each of these parables, we’re not expecting Jesus to tell us an exactly factual story—He makes these stories up to teach a spiritual point.

Several reasons this parable is figurative and spiritual and not literal:

Lazarus is carried to “Abraham’s bosom.” This is clearly intended to be metaphorical because Abraham can’t fit all the saved in his embrace.

The rich man is buried in the grave (v 22). No one believes that a person’s literal dead body in the grave is also miraculously in a burning hell at the moment they die. Exhume a dead body and you’ll find a dead body—they haven’t been transported to a place of burning.

The rich man could talk with Abraham, from hell, to heaven. Either hell and heaven are neighbors, or this is just a story told to make a spiritual point. All the evidence in the Bible supports an end-time cleansing of the earth by fire, not a currently burning hell.

The rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus over with a drop of water. If these are not real bodies (‘cause they’re in the grave), do people in a supposedly literal hell have fingers and could water actually help him at all? No, this is intended to be figurative.

A literal reading of the Rich Man and Lazarus parable brings you into conflict with all kinds of scripture. But if you read on in the story of Jesus, you’ll find that there were rich men — the Pharisees — who had all the truth from God that they would need to accept Jesus as the Messiah. And then there was Lazarus, the friend of Jesus who died.

In the parable Jesus emphasizes the importance of having a faith based on the Word of God, and not miraculous signs.

Then when the real Lazarus comes back from the dead, the pharisees don’t believe in Jesus. Instead, that is the watershed moment where they begin to plot Jesus’ death.

Not only is Jesus directly talking to the Pharisees, he’s rebuking the whole Jewish nation. They have the riches of Heaven in the messages of the Bible, but they horde their spiritual wealth and blessings just like the Rich man did. After Jesus’ death the disciples took the gospel message — the same one the Jews had in the Bible — all throughout the known world. They did what God had called Isreal to do for so long, but they had not.

It’s a good parable for us to consider as well. What are our priorities with our physical and spiritual wealth. Do we horde it away for our own greedy use, or do we share and share alike, helping those less fortunate than us? Do we believe God’s word, or are we so caught up in selfish living that we would reject God’s messenger, even if it was Christ himself?

Message

We’ve been exploring chapters in Daniel and Revelation, and I know that we are far from done. In fact, I’ve got a plan to go through the entire book of Daniel later this year in a weekly sermon series that will be epic. We only got through 4 of the 12 chapters of Daniel during this series, so there’s lots more to explore. And then there’s all the details in Revelation that we’ve barely skimmed over—the 7 churches, Revelation 18 and 19, the trumpets, and the plagues of Revelation 16. We acknowledged all of that, but we haven’t really studied it. So, there’s always more to learn, but I think we’ve covered enough to make us all dangerous. And I’ve given you the most important principles for studying prophecy. So, tonight, I want to wrap up Discovering Revelation’s month-long marathon Bible study with a more personal study.

When I was a young kid, my mom told me over and over again that God had a plan for my life.

I was that kid who couldn’t make any friends. Well, there were a few older kids who were nice to me, but the kids my own age acted like I was radioactive. And I probably was. I had a real problem with exaggeration and lying. I was a know-it-all (might still have a tiny bit of that problem). I was a pesky kid that kept getting into other people’s business. I was clueless about social norms and reasonable boundaries. So, it’s no mystery why I didn’t have a lot of friends. But it was one of those things about my childhood that created significant emotional scars.

Was I acceptable? Would I ever amount to anything? Would anyone want me as a friend? I couldn’t have put those emotions into so many words, but they ran deep.

And my precious mother repeatedly reminded me that God had a plan for my life. That in spite of my trial, and possibly even through it, God was at work.

She didn’t just tell me that God had a plan for me, she started reading a book to my sister and me called, “The Story of Redemption.” This book told the story that I’ve been telling you—the war in heaven, the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. The call of Noah and Abraham and the Israelites. The story of Jesus and His great sacrifice for mankind. The early church. The apostacy of the middle ages. The renewed study of Scripture in the Reformation. The deepening study of Daniel and Revelation in the second great awakening of the 19th century. The time of the end that we’re living in now. And then it finished with a grand and glorious description of Jesus’ return and of heaven.

We read verses like Jesus promise that he would come again:

John 14:1–3 (AV)

1 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you.

I go to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

My young heart thrilled at the though that God wanted me. He was making a place for ME and coming back for ME.

And we read about the second coming:

1 Thessalonians 4:16–17 (NKJV)

16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.

17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.

Have you imagined it? I was. I went to bed dreaming about it, and I loved those dreams. Jesus coming in amazing glory—the most amazing sight anyone has ever or will ever see. And I was there saying,

Isaiah 25:9 (NKJV)

“Behold, this is our God; We have waited for Him, and He will save us. This is the Lord; We have waited for Him; We will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.”

At the time I was too young to be able to read on my own, but I begged mom to give me that book. So, a year or two later, when I could read well enough, she gave me a copy of The Story of Redemption, and I still have that book with a special message from her on the inside cover.

Maybe you don’t have a problem making friends, but I know there are times in your life when you look around you and wonder “what’s next?” Sometimes it’s financial stressors that makes us wonder if we’ll ever get our heads out of the water. Sometimes its a toxic work environment that drags us down. Sometimes its our own stupidity and failures that stare back at us from the mirror and remind us that we are fundamentally broken people. Mistakes from our past that keep reaching out and clawing at us. Soul-wrenching loss that seems to threaten the foundation of our sanity.

…we all have it. Something that makes us wonder if we are worth it. If there is a future for us.

And the Bible makes it clear, that there is a future for broken people like you and me.

Let’s take a couple minutes and see what God’s plan is for us:

Jeremiah 29:11 NKJV

11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.

A future, and a hope. This is a passage that’s right in the middle of a rebuke that God was giving to His people when they were in the absolute worst apostacy of Israel’s history. They were offering their kids as sacrifices to idols. They were worship pagan gods in the Temple of the Lord. It was horrible. And God said, “I have a plan for you.”

Are you in a bad place? Maybe you’re dealing with an addiction that few know about, but it’s eating at you. You know its wrong, you know it hurts you and others, but you just can’t give it up. God says, “I know the thoughts that I think toward you...” and the next words are words of comfort, “…thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

Are you dealing with those nagging, negative thoughts where you keep telling yourself that you’re not good enough. You’re a failure. You’ll never be accepted or truly loved. If people really knew you, they’d run the other way. God knows exactly what you’re thinking and so he says, “Let me tell you what my thoughts are towards you… thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

Whatever your experience has been, God is telling you tonight that he has a good plan for you. He’s preparing a place for you, and He’s coming to get you to take you to be with Him. You are loved. You are wanted. You are needed. You are precious.

Heaven sounds great, but that seems so far off. Does God have a plan for my future here on earth, or do I have to wait until heaven for God’s plans to kick in?

Proverbs 16:9 NKJV

9 A man’s heart plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps.

If you and I say to God, “I want your future”, then God promises that He will direct our steps. We make plans. Plans for work, for play, for education, for relationship, and then Jesus invites us to pray

Matthew 6:10 (NKJV)

Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.

And when we do that, He promises to direct our steps.

When I was 15 a new pastor came to our little church in Powderly, Kentucky. We had 30 people attending on a good day, so the pastor’s family of five really made a difference. Especially their oldest daughter whom I quickly grew quite fond of. I made all kinds of excuses to spend time with their family, and they all became my good friends. If I were tell you what God’s plan was when I was 18 or 19, I would have told you that God wanted me to marry that young lady. That may have been my plan, but God wasn’t leading in that direction. Pretty soon, she went to college and met a guy and before long they got married. clearly, that wasn’t what God was doing.

I will always be grateful for that family’s kind friendship and especially the mentorship of Pastor Steve. As a young teenager he invited me to join him in visiting and giving Bible studies. His influence helped me to recognize God’s calling to share the gospel, and in large part because of his influence, I’m a pastor today. God directed my steps. My plan would have had me going an entirely different direction than God wanted me to go.

It’s important for us to take our plans to God each day and give them to Him. Ask Him to change them if He wants something different.

But, if you’re anything like me, you’re probably going to hold onto your plans a little too tightly. Determined that you know what’s best for you, you refuse to let go of something, even after God has moved you in a different direction.

As a kid I loved flight. The idea of being a pilot was my obsession. I couldn’t imagine how to do it and no opportunities seemed to be popping up for getting my pilot’s license. But I wanted to fly. I visit the air and space museum in Huntsville Alabama on my 9th birthday—I was so excited, it was like a dream. I saw an advertisement to go to space came, and that’s all I could dream of doing for a long time. But with not much money for extras like that, I never got the chance. No space camp. No pilots license. And I didn’t have a clue how to proceed. Did God want me to become a pilot?

Did you know that God speaks to us in different ways?

One way He talks to us is through the Bible. That’s an easy one. He reveals his will through His moral law, and through the stories of how He related to people who went through experiences much like ours. He tells us about how to live and where we’re from and what His plan for the future of mankind is. He’s even able to use the Bible to instruct us in the way we should go today—it’s like a living document that He can use to give us direction.

But God also speaks through what I’ll call “providential workings.” I’m sure you’ve experienced this before—You were going about accomplishing your plans and suddenly you ran into what seemed like a brick wall. Your plans failed miserable, for no apparent reason. That’s one of the ways God leads us. He shuts down an opportunity, or opens up a new one. A few years ago, when that kind of thing happened, someone would have said, “must be providential.” Sometimes God leads someone else to give us some advice—the parent that wants to keep you from an unhealthy marriage, or the friend who sees your true motivation behind a decision and cautions you against it. A multitude of godly counselors can be a great help in keeping you going down the straight and narrow.

And finally, there’s the whispers — and sometimes shouts — of the Holy Spirit as He impresses your heart. When you ask for God’s guidance, and you’ve studied his word for answers, and asked your godly friends for advice, and watched to see how God will open a path for you, sometimes things are still unclear. And that’s when the Holy spirit promises this:

Isaiah 30:21 (NKJV)

21 Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,”

God promises to direct your path.

And still, we make mistakes and choose things that aren’t the best for us. And sometimes, it’s other people who take the wrong path and we get harmed by it. Sin messes everything up. Sometimes the sins of others reach into our lives and twist and mangle what could have been a beautiful life. Sometimes our own stupidity and selfish choices make a mess out of things.

Does God abandon us?

No.

Romans 8:28 NKJV

28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

Did you hear that? If we love Jesus, then He promises to make our mangled messes and the brokenness that others cause in our lives and make it into something that is good. Something beautiful, even.

When I was a kid, someone did something to me that broke my spirit. It made me ambivalent and confused. It made me question my value and doubt my purpose. And maybe that experience was partly to blame for my awkwardness and problems making friends. It certainly contributed to negative self talk and feelings of hopelessness as a child.

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “hurt people, hurt people.” And that’s exactly what I did. I finally made a friend and what did I do? I brought that same brokenness that I experienced into their life.

What can God do with a broken guy who goes around breaking other people?

If God can’t help in a situation like that then He can’t help anyone. Because isn’t that what we all do? Someone pokes us and we turn around and poke someone else. Someone yells at us, and before long we’ve yelled at someone else. Someone abuses us, and we go off and abuse someone in just the same way.

God said it would be this way. He said,

Exodus 20:4–6 (NKJV)

4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above,

or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth;

5 you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God,

visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,

And there it is. Your grandfather is an alcoholic, and so your father became and alcoholic. And now, you’re an alcoholic. Your grandfather abused his wife and your mother. And then she married a guy who was abusive, and so you grew up in a home with angry words, threats, maybe even violence. And now, you hate that it’s so, but sometimes things come out of your mouth that sound an awful lot like your abusive dad. Or maybe you’ve found yourself in a similarly abusive marriage.

This story has been repeated since the days immediately after the fall when Cain took his family and left to build a city of his own design. And his children inherited his sins. The bible tells us that it even got worse. Cain killed his brother, but Cain’s grandchildren killed a lots of people—just because they didn’t like them.

It seems hopeless sometimes, but God has a plan. Notice how God doesn’t just leave us with generational sins. He says he’s going to do something about it:

6 but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

God promises to short-circuit the evil that is perpetrated through family lines. He says he’s going to show mercy. And look who He is able to show mercy to: those who love Him and keep his commandments. That’s a simple formula.

And we love Him because He first loved us. We love because He sent His son to die for us. We love because he said that He will abide with us, and send His Spirit to live in us. We love because he has gone to prepare a place for us. We love because He is coming back for us.

Our love is a simple, and rational response to the great gift of life that God has given us.

Your path may not have been what God intended, but God says He still loves you. All you have to do is surrender your life to Him right now and he says he’s going to make you into a new creature,

2 Corinthians 5:17 (NKJV)

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

A new you. That’s God’s promise. And listen to this one:

Ephesians 2:10 NKJV

10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

It’s all back to those people who follow the lamb—God says they’re going to have the Father’s name written on their foreheads. But How do you get the character of God in your heart?

I can assure you that it’s not an instantaneous, magical event. You aren’t somehow changed from an immature, raging alcoholic into an wise and mature, temptation free human. There’s something of a struggle that happens in the process. A continuing surrender to God. But He promises that if we give Him our whole selves, then He’s going to remake us and the result will look something like this:

Galatians 5:22–24 (NKJV)

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.

24 And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

There was a time in my life when I seriously questioned the reality of God. My wife and I were going through a difficult time. She was dealing with some past hurts, and her process brought up some of my past hurts. It was such a dark time in our lives that for a minute I considered what it would be like if we just embraced the darkness. This wasn’t a disbelief brought on by reason, but pure, raw emotion—the kind you had when you were mad at your parents as a kid and through about running away.

And, I’m sure you know how it is when you have those emotions. I started looked around me and coveting the life other people had. At the time we were living in a modestly appointed fifth-wheel. We lived in that thing for four years. Others have struggled more than we have, but during this time of darkness I looked at that fifth-wheel with disgust and cried out to God, “why do we have to live in this thing?”

To be fair, God had made it pretty clear when we moved into that fifth-wheel trailer that it was His plan. But now, in that dark time of my life, I saw things that were uncomfortable for me and I blamed God for them. I looked around at other people who had nice homes that they’d lived in for 20 or 30 years and owned, free and clear. They had extra money for stuff they wanted. I saw people buying and selling property and making a profit. I saw people who worked fewer hours than me but bringing home bigger pay checks. I had to drive a 12 year old 1-ton dually so I could haul my fifth wheel when friends were driving around brand new F150 4x4’s or, my personal favorite, Teslas Model X’s.

Along with our personal crisis, my boss had informed me that the school I was leading out it would be closed at the end of that school year. I started looking around at possible jobs that would pay more than I was making, and give my family a chance to settle into one place. There was a part of me that was interested in what God had to say, but mostly I wanted to secure a “better” life for my family. I considered starting a landscaping company — I had the truck, at least. I considered moving back to Tennessee where my sister was living at the time and getting a job in real estate, or construction, or project management. We’d be close to family, I reasoned.

This was a process of months and months of struggle, and prayer, and silence from God.

That silence was the worst thing. Just being in that space where the future is unclear. And the one who is suppose to be directing your ways just leaves you hanging. That was hard.

One day I took Joelle out to eat and we sat across from each other, held hands, and then we both sighed a big long sigh. I don’t remember who said it, but one of us suggested that we just drop it all at God’s feet and tell Him that we are willing to do whatever He wants—even it’s living in an RV for a few more years. And so we both prayed. We asked God to direct our paths, and to do His will in our lives. We told him that we’d love to live in a little 3 bed, 2 bath house with a fence for the kids and a garage where I can have a woodshop. We told Him we’d like to settle into one place for a while and put down some roots. But we told him that it was entirely up to Him.

We left the restaurant with smiles on our faces and relative peace about the future. But we had no idea what was going to happen next.

Since I was in highschool I had been working with a youth ministry called Youth Rush — a Christian sales ministry that helped kids earn tuition to attend Christian schools, and at the same time distributed Bible-based books around the country. The school that I was in charge of, and that was closing, was a two-year missionary training school that used the Youth Rush model to help the students pay their way.

The morning after our prayer time in that restaurant, I got a call from a guy I didn’t know. He introduced himself and said that he would like my family to consider coming to work as an intern pastor in Walla Walla, WA. Of course, we had to pray about it, but there was no doubt in our minds that God had answered our prayer of surrender. After some wise council, we agreed to come.

But where would we live? Would we rent a place for our RV? We didn’t have any money for a down payment on a house. We though that maybe we could rent and save up. But when we looked at the rental market everything was several hundred dollars above our monthly budget, or else it was a place that didn’t fit our family’s needs.

I won’t bore you with all the details, but I will say this: at every step of the way, we surrendered and God led. When all was said and done, we were able to purchase a home with no money down, and pay less per month than what it would have cost us to rent. God gave us a small, 3/2, with a fenced back yard and a nice garage in back that I made into a woodshop. We developed a community of friends, and I got some much needed rest as an intern to an experienced pastor.

I don’t know where God is leading next, but I do know that God has directed my path all the way to this church in this town in northern Idaho. It was His mercy that gave us the house we’re living in. His wonderful plan led us here, and gave us all of you as our friends. From my experience, I know that God’s word is true.

Listen to this poem by David in Psalm 34:

Psalm 34:6–8 (NKJV)

6 This poor man cried out, and the Lord heard him, And saved him out of all his troubles.

7 The angel of the Lord encamps all around those who fear Him, And delivers them.

8 Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!

Taste and see. That’s a faith thing. Step out. Say, “Yes” to God’s direction in His word. He has promised to direct your path, and I know that the path He puts us on is the smoothest path we could find.

There’s a story in the book Pilgrim’s Progress where Christian and his traveling companion are walking along the narrow way of salvation. If you haven’t read the book, it’s an allegory of the Christian experience. The narrow way was a little rough, and just across the fence was a pleasant, grassy field that ran right along the King’s highway. So, against his traveling companion’s advice, Christian led the way to hop the fence and walk in the grass. They enjoyed the grass and distracted themselves with conversation until they suddenly realized that they couldn’t see the King’s road anymore. It got dark, it poured down rain. They fell into a hole. And in the morning the owner of that field came and found them—the giant despair from the castle of doubt.

And that’s exactly the Christian experience. We have two options, either we surrender our way to the Lord, and even if it seems a little rough for a time, we walk faithfully onward in God’s path. Or, we choose our own path, and find ourselves in the grips of despair, chained in the dungeon of doubting castle.

Jesus invites us to a radically different kind of life to the world’s idea of success. He says that the only way that we can find our life, is to loose it. The only way to success is through surrender. The only way to lead is to serve. In a way, everything is upside down from what we expect it to be. And that makes sense if you consider how the kingdom of heaven is about love, and the kingdom of Satan is about selfishness and pride. They are complete opposites.

In Satan’s kingdom you horde your wealth and spend it on your pleasure. In God’s kingdom you give generously and trust God to supply your needs.

In Satan’s kingdom you push your way to the top and compete for the highest position and the best pay check. In God’s kingdom you empower others and step aside to give others the best place.

It might sound backwards, or upside down, but Surrendering ourselves to God’s plan will ALWAYS lead to joy and contentment, while doing things our own way will ALWAYS lead to discontent and dissatisfaction.

Do you want to be the kind, joyful, loving person that God says a Christian should be? Do you want to have the fruit of the spirit? Do you want to know the steps that God has for you to take next? Here is Jesus’ recipe for success in life:

John 15:5 NKJV

5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.

There it is. Abide.

It’s as simple as that.

The branch of a tree sits there. Stays put. Receives the nutrients and water it needs to grow by clinging onto the vine. And sometimes, when the wind blows hard and the rain pounds down, it’s a bit of work to hold onto the trunk. As it clings to the tree and receives life from it, the branch grows leaves, and flowers pop out of it, and pretty soon fruit starts to grow.

For the Christian this looks like two four things:

Regular time in Bible study

Talking with God like you talk to a friend

Regular surrender of your life and plans

Obeying God and following His leading

Spending time with other Christians

When we practice these things, we grow. When we don’t practice these things, we stagnate, and our spiritual life dies without the leadership and nourishment of Jesus.

Conclusion

You may have a long history with Jesus, or you may be beginning your journey. You may be renewing your walk with God after a long lapse. Whatever your situation God wants you to know two things:

He has good plans for your next steps in life. They might not be the plans you expect. They might not even be comfortable at the moment. But if you surrender your life to Him, then it will be SOOO much better than trying to do things your way.

He has a plan for your future. He longs to have you live with Him in heaven in that huge house that he’s making a room in just for you. He has a future and a hope, designed just for you.

Starting next Teusday, we’re going to have an amazing Bible study that will explore the story of salvation from the perspective of the sanctuary, and the books of Daniel and Revelation. This is going to be a place where you can grow with other Christians and learn to more about the God of creation and redemption.

Starting this coming Sabbath at 9:30, I’m going to be leading out in a “new here” class. If you’re wanting to become part of the Adventist church, or you’ve made plans to be baptized, or you just want a refresher, then this class is for you. It’s a Bible study that will help you understand the Bible, and live a life that glorifies God.

While Discovering Revelation is drawing to an end, Jesus’ path continues on. I hope you’ll continuing taking steps to deepen your knowledge of God, grow your faith in His plan.

Claudia — If It Matters to You, It Matters to the Master

Prayer