Christian Living

We have just taken a step over the threshold of a new year, from 2019 to 2020. What will it be like to step over the threshold from time to eternity?
We serve an eternal God. This simply means that God always was: He was before Adam; He was before the mountains; He was God a billion years before creation. He always was God.

Therefore be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh (Matt 24:44). How we view punctuality affects us both in time and eternity.
What is punctuality? It means to be ready, prepared, on time, prompt. It is doing or having something done on time. It is the characteristic of keeping an engagement or an appointment, such as a doctor or dentist appointment. When people think of me in relation to punctuality, do they see me as normally on time or normally late?

In our society, there is a lot of emphasis on change. People want to change their past, their identity, and their gender. They sometimes go through extreme measures to accomplish it. As Christians, we also face a life-altering change when we truly meet Jesus. Our priorities, identities, passions, actions, speech, loyalties, and life destination all change when we allow Jesus in our lives. Biblical examples of several men show us extreme change when Jesus met them and empowered change in their lives.

Every Wednesday, I go past a veteran’s memorial and underneath the flag is a piece of granite with these words. “A veteran: Someone who at one point in their life wrote a blank check for an amount up to and including their life, made payable to the United States of America.”

The drinking of wine has been a problem for thousands of years. We read that Noah was drunk with wine in Genesis 9, and Lot was drunk in Genesis 19.
The Proverb writer declares in his final chapter that wine is not for kings or princes. Again, in Proverbs 23, he says, The drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty.
In First Samuel 1, Eli thought Hannah was drunk and rebuked her for it.
Queen Vashti lost her position as Queen because of a drunken husband in Esther 1.
Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine (Isa 5:22a).

Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks; I know thy works (Rev 2:1-2a).

We avoid thinking about death in our culture. We’re uncomfortable talking about it. We would rather just brush it aside with a nervous laugh and change the subject. But we can’t brush it aside for too long, because we and everyone we know will die.

Many years ago, I wrestled with this question. I distinctly remember asking an older bishop why we as a church have standards. I will never forget his answer, “We have church standards because we have found that if you want to have a plain church, you need to have a written discipline.” In other words, the ultimate goal he had for the church was that it remains plain and separated. His experience was we would not maintain that separation without a written standard.

As Christians, we face forces designed to erode what we believe. Many of our worship services are a ‘convinced again’ experience. Other personal experiences convince us again of the realities of the unchanging truth. Recently another ‘convinced again’ experience was going along with a three-day evangelism effort in New York City. I believe the youth would testify the same.

Baring-Gould/Barnby