Thoughts that drive me to the cross

²⁰  “But Judah will be filled with people forever, and Jerusalem will endure through all generations. ²¹  I will pardon my people’s crimes, which I have not yet pardoned; and I, the LORD, will make my home in Jerusalem with my people.” Joel 3:20-21 (NLT2)

We must resist every attempt of Satan to palm off upon us the values that belong to mortality. Nothing less than forever is long enough for us. We view with amused sadness the frenetic scramble of the world to gain a brief moment in the sun.…

The calendar tells me it is another Monday, even though I am “technically” on vacation, I know the workload that awaits me this day. Because it is another Monday, there is a sense of lethargy, and a question why I am wasting my time on writing that will only be read by two or three people, or if I am lucky 4 or 5.

My mind wanders through the readings from my devotions, and I keep thinking I am caught in a time trap. I am thinking about this from the perspective of what the return on investment will be in these days, rather than the impact of the words in my heart, and how they have changed my, my preaching and teaching. I can only pray that these changes impact others.

Tozer was correct – Satan will try to steal our joy, by making us think through things for the value they present today.

If you are only looking at today, forgiveness and mercy make no difference – sin will just creep in tomorrow.

If you are only thinking about today, reconciliation makes little sense.

Neither does time in pray or meditating on scriptures like the one in Joel.

But eternity does exist,

We have something to look forward to, and Satan can’t steal that from us.

Nor can he steal from us the presence of the Holy Spirit, who transforms us into the image of Christ, readying us to dwell in the glory of God.

So what God puts in front of you this Monday – rejoice in it, trusting God to use it for good, for He loves us.

We get caught in in phrases

A. W. Tozer, Tozer for the Christian Leader (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2015).