Today’s
Text: 1 John 2: 24-25
And this is what he promised us—even eternal life. (Vrs 25)
Words
of Devotion
Most of us read the words
eternal life as though they only apply to heaven in the
future. Everlasting life, we call it, life that never ends. That is
not inaccurate. Eternal life is life that never ends, but the essential factor
about eternal life is not quantity, but quality. What John is
speaking of here is not merely something we are going to get in heaven someday,
but it is something we can experience and enjoy now. It is fullness of life, the
full quality of divine life lived out in your situation, right now, and
increasing in fullness of enjoyment forever. In other words, eternal
life is the daily adventure of experiencing God's solution to every problem instead
of your own. It is the discovery of God's program for every opportunity,
instead of yours. Every time we are confronted with a problem, there are two
things we can do.
In the weakness of our own
intellect, relying upon our own human resources, we can try to work out the
problem. When we do, the result is inevitably the same. Life dissipates into a
drabness, a boredom, a routine that leaves us utterly uninterested and desiring
to be uninvolved. That is our program.
Or we can have God's
solution to any problem or any opportunity. In any situation we can
say, Lord, You are in me, and You have come in me to live through me. This
situation has been brought about by your planning and your programming. Father,
I wouldn't be in it if it were not for you. Now, Lord, do through me what you
want to do with it. Then we watch to see what God does, and we become
instantly available to Him to move in whatever direction it looks like the
situation demands. As we do, we discover that His program begins to unfold in
that situation. Every obstacle becomes a
glorious opportunity to display the fullness of glory, wisdom, and power that
is in the God who has come to live and make His home within us.
I remember as a young
Christian reading that great promise in Ephesians, “Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably
more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within
us” ... (Ephesians 3:20). I remember looking at that
verse and saying to myself, Is that really true? Does God really offer to
do for me beyond that which I can ever ask or think at this moment? That's
fantastic! I can ask a lot of life. I can dream and imagine a great many
wonderful experiences that I would love to have, to bring satisfaction to my
life and heart. I even had the program outlined in my mind, just how God
could do it. But as I look back across these many years, I can see that God did
not take my program and do it my way, but He has abundantly fulfilled the
promise. My life is richer than I ever dreamed it would be when I was a young
Christian.
If we are ready to give
ourselves to the Word of God, to let it possess us, to understand it, and to
obey it—if that which you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will
abide in the Son and in the Father. The experience of that is eternal life!
Prayer: Father, grant to
me, through all the feeble searching’s of my heart, the discovery of eternal
life in my everyday experience.
Life Application: What
is the daily adventure of experiencing God's solution to every problem instead
of our own called? Are we willingly letting the living Word possess us each
day?
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