Hello, Church. It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming!
The weather is beautiful, the leaves are hinting at the changes that come with the encroaching fall, and the kids are all back in school. Autumn is a great time in New England before the green turns to the grey of winter. But whether we have days full of sun or shadow, I hope we remember to rejoice. As the psalmist said, “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24, ESV).
For those of us who believe in God and Jesus the Messiah, we have all kinds of reasons to be thankful and rejoice. Not only do we have the hope of peace, love, and joy in this life, but we have eternal life with God and all the saints in the life to come. If it wasn’t for Jesus, we wouldn’t have that promise. We’d likely look forward with fear knowing that death comes for us all, but we don’t have to be afraid. Death is still real, and the sin that leads to death is still seductive, but we have been saved by the one who showed his dominion over death, and so we can live in confident faith.
We live in this faith knowing that we cannot take our salvation for granted. We cannot pretend that the security God offers is unconditional. We know that Satan still tries to entangle us in sin, and sin will corrupt every good thing God gives us. Sunday morning, we’ll talk more about the destructiveness of sin so that we can be wise to Satan’s schemes and grab hold of the goodness of God that is offered in Jesus.
See you soon,
Patrick Barber