Tag: Eternity

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Today the Lord took me to Psalm 73.

73 A psalm of Asaph.
1      Truly God is good to Israel,
to those whose hearts are pure.
2      But as for me, I almost lost my footing.
My feet were slipping, and I was almost gone.
3      For I envied the proud
when I saw them prosper despite their wickedness.
4      They seem to live such painless lives;
their bodies are so healthy and strong.
5      They don’t have troubles like other people;
they’re not plagued with problems like everyone else. 
21      Then I realized that my heart was bitter,
and I was all torn up inside.
22      I was so foolish and ignorant—
I must have seemed like a senseless animal to you.
23      Yet I still belong to you;
you hold my right hand.
24      You guide me with your counsel,
leading me to a glorious destiny.
25      Whom have I in heaven but you?
I desire you more than anything on earth.
26      My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak,
but God remains the strength of my heart;
he is mine forever.
27      Those who desert him will perish,
for you destroy those who abandon you.
28      But as for me, how good it is to be near God!
I have made the Sovereign Lord my shelter,
and I will tell everyone about the wonderful things you do.

Again, it’s not about me.  Dwelling on – envying – the success and apparant ease of life of the wicked and rich is making it about me and what I don’t have.  It’s all about Him.  It’s all about eternity. 

My mind tries to define eternity as the time I have on this earth, because it seems like it will be SO long, but I have no context in which to understand the concept of eternity.  I hear it’s a really, really, long time!

Father, remove these filters of humanity through which I filter everything around me.  Open my eyes and my mind to see the eternal, the eternity in every man and woman.  Through these stupid filters, everything relates to or revolves around me.  When seeing with your eyes, it’s all about you.  In Jesus name, I pray. Amen.

Eternal Life

OK.  I’m still not very far in Romans, but in Romans 2:6-7 I was looking up all the meanings of the various words and for kicks I happened to look up “eternal.”

I’ve been a Christian a long time and thought I knew the word… Eternal Life and all, but its entirely possible that I’ve been missing something.  Read carefully the definition in Strongs for the word translated as “eternal.”  The word is aionios.

1 without beginning and end, that which always has been and always will be. 2 without beginning. 3 without end, never to cease, everlasting.

Did you catch something new?  “Without beginning,” really hit me between the eyes.  Is it possible (prepare for a synapse or two to be overloaded here) that when we step into eternal life, we will will be “without beginning?”  Just typing this out blows my mind, but this word is used 70 or so times in the New Testament and clearly refer to our eternal state.  My finite mind can’t wrap its arms around that infinite thought because I was born on a fall day in 1966.

It’s possible that I’m way out in left field on this one.  However, Father has shown me today what He needs me to see and that it is a very applicable lesson.  How does that apply to me today?

I cannot possibly understand the ways of God. In one sense, it scares me to not be able to think my way through this.  In another, it’s very reassuring to know that my God is so much bigger than I am and I can trust Him, even if I can’t wrap my head around Him.

Don’t stop seeking. Verse 7 in the ESV uses the word “seek” which means to “to seek [in order to find out] by thinking, meditating, reasoning, to inquire into.”  We are to seek out those things – think on, meditate, reason, inquire – that bring glory, honor and immortality (those things that are pure and incorruptible) by patiently doing, but God himself will give us eternal life – that which we will never be able to reason out.

Father,  Thank you that you are bigger than my mind.  I praise the fact that I cannot understand you; I cannot figure you out; that you are SO much bigger than I could ever imagine.  Help me walk today in that security and faith to do things bigger than myself in your name today.  Bless your name.  Amen.