August 23, 2013

Nothing highlights how quickly times flies than having a "daily" blog and discovering it has been three days since the last post and it seeming as if it was just one, maybe two.

While the individual days may crawl, the years race.

² Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known.  1 John 3:2a

In the verse above, John is speaking of our eternity, but the January 26 entry from Daily Strength for Daily Needs applies the verse to our preeternity selves.  The "us" of here and now.

Johannes Tauler, Catholic preacher and theologian, wrote of 1 John 3:2:

  "St. Bernard of Clairvaux has said: 'Man, if thou desirest a noble and holy life, and unceasingly prayest to God for it, if thou continue constant in this thy desire, it will be granted unto thee without fail, even if only in the day or hour of thy death; and if God should not give it to thee then, thou shalt find it in Him in eternity: of this be assured.' Therefore do not relinquish your desire, though it be not fulfilled immediately, or though ye may swerve from your aspirations, or even forget them for a time…. The love and aspiration which once really existed live forever before God, and in Him ye shall find the fruit thereof; that is, to all eternity it shall be better for you than if you had never felt them."

As one gets older and reflects on previous years, a danger is to focus on the mistakes and missteps.  Wasted years and missed opportunities loom large.  But John reminds the Christian "what we will be has not been made known."  

No one is free from a past of sin and missed opportunities.  The best of the best have had thoughts, made statements and performed acts for which God will hold them accountable.  But if a person has accepted Christ as personal Lord and Savior, none of that "accountability" will result in eternal punishment.  God's adopted children are forgiven, lock, stock and barrel.  Allowing yesterday's mistakes to cause today's inactivity is just what the Enemy would have for each Christian. 

If John 3:16 is the totality of your memory verse repertoire, what is keeping you from tackling the 23rd Psalm?  If you have never had a quiet time, why not start with 10 minutes a day?  Don't allow the "I nevers" and "I didn'ts" keep you from the "I cans" and "I wills".

"What we will be has not yet been made known."