LIVING IN HOPE

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Anyone who is among the living has hope—even a live dog is better off than a dead lion! For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even their name is forgotten. Their love, their hate and their jealousy have long since vanished; never again will they have a part in anything that happens under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 9:4-6

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. 1 Peter 3:15

This verse from 1 Peter has always been stored in my heart for it is a primer for building relationships in life as the Lord brings us into encounters with people each and every day. We are to be people of hope because we all have the chance to have a hope that no one or nothing can take away.

I was reminded of this truth as I read today’s verses from the 9th chapter of Ecclesiastes. Look at what the word of God is saying to us:

Anyone who is among the living has hope—even a live dog is better off than a dead lion! For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even their name is forgotten. Their love, their hate and their jealousy have long since vanished; never again will they have a part in anything that happens under the sun. (vv 4-6)

The premise is very simple. Those who are living have hope, receive reward, and be known. The dead do not have hope, will not receive anything, and will be forgotten.

So how do you know if you are living or dead?

The answer to the question comes in Jesus Christ and your relationship with Him. Consider these words from the Book of Ephesians:

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.  Ephesians 2:1-9

The truth of life is that we are all walking dead, men and women who are without hope because of our sinfulness. We are a people who like to follow the ways of the world, a world that is Satan’s domain. We yearn to satisfy the cravings of our flesh, to do what it takes to meet our desires. God hates sin and His wrath and judgment is in store for us all.

And we deserve it.  

Not a pretty picture to paint. Definitely not an illustration of hope to share with others.

Thank goodness the story doesn’t end here.

For out of His rich grace and mercy and kindness and love, God did not wish for any of us to perish in our transgressions. He wished for us to have a chance to be redeemed and brought to life, to come alive from our state of death to a place of hope, not just in the here and now but forever. And so He gave up His one and only Son, Jesus, to die in our place, to pay the price for the wickedness and evil we committed. Rather than see us all pass away, He created a way through sacrificing His Son for us to live with Him forever, to ascend into the heavens just as Jesus did after His resurrection.

So how do we find our way from death to life? How do we depart the world’s hopelessness and live in an eternal hope we are expected to share with others?

All one has to do is confess Jesus as their personal Savior, to admit their sins and confess that they know and trust that God saved them through His Son so that they might not die but have everlasting life (John 3:16).

Friends, I don’t know if you have done this or not today but I do know this, if you have Jesus in your life and are living for Him, you are alive, more alive that you have ever been as His Spirit brings you to a place of joy and peace and excitement that this world cannot possibly provide, to a place where you are living in hope every day and can’t wait to share that hope with all you encounter, to a place where you can be free to live and love and learn from Jesus who walks with you in this world and is ready to usher you into eternal life when this life ends.

Thanks be to God for the hope we have in His Son.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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IN GOD'S HANDS

Can I pray for you in any way? Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com.

In Christ, Mark

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** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

So I reflected on all this and concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in God’s hands, but no one knows whether love or hate awaits them. All share a common destiny—the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not.

As it is with the good, so with the sinful; as it is with those who take oaths, so with those who are afraid to take them. This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all. The hearts of people, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead.

I have seen something else under the sun:

The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all. Moreover, no one knows when their hour will come.

 No one knows what is coming—who can tell someone else what will happen after them?

Ecclesiastes 9:1-3, 11-12a , 10:14b

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

There is an inevitable truth that everyone in life will face, no matter how long they try to suppress or deny it.

Everyone’s life is going to end.

That’s not exactly good news for people, especially the ones who wish to never leave the world they live in, a world they treasure and love for all that it offers them. Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21) and so when the world is a person’s treasure, you can see where the prospect of death leaves them heart-broken. Perhaps you are one of those people as you read this today.

With this, it’s little wonder who Solomon makes the following statement in our scripture passage today found in Ecclesiastes, Chapter 9:

This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all. (v 3a)

That destiny of course is death and the view of it being evil is only from the world’s view. For death need not be something seen as evil but something one actually might look forward to when it comes. More on that later for there is one other very key point here when it comes to this passage, one we would do well to remember, one we had better think about as we consider this matter of death and life.

The point is that we are all in God’s hands and all (the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not), share a common destiny which is death. No one knows when that time will come but rest assured it will come in the time that God appoints it. He ordained our coming into the world at His time and He will take us from the world at His time.

Here’s what makes things really tricky for someone who is of the world and loves it so very much.

The world is evil and sinful because it is inhabited by people who are evil and sinful. No one has lived and not sinned. Solomon says this about people in our passage:

The hearts of people, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live. (v 3b)

The big problem with this is that God hates sin and, remember, we are all in His hands. Not exactly a good place to be, is it?

This is why we need Jesus, the only One who can save wretched sinners like us from the wrath and judgment we deserve. Before any of us were born, He willfully allowed Himself to be crucified, a living sacrifice that God, His Father, commissioned to pay the price for the sins of humanity, all the sin. Solomon mentioned people who made sacrifices. That was the way to atone for sin before Jesus. People would bring unblemished animals and sacrifice them on the altar, the shed blood atoning for their sins before God. In Jesus, the perfect unblemished Lamb of God, His blood, shed on Calvary’s cross, was the last sacrifice required and after Christ’s death and resurrection, anyone who believed in Him would find their sins covered and receive the promise of eternal life.

In other words, death had lost its sting for those who placed their trust in Jesus as Savior.

Friends, this is at the heart of the Gospel which when translated simply means good news. The God who holds us in His hands does not wish for us to perish but rather live with Him and His Son, Jesus, forever. All that’s required is for us to confess our sins, believe that Jesus died for us to pay the price for our sinfulness, and then ask Jesus to enter our hearts and minds and souls to lead and guide us to live in His ways and in accordance with His will, which is incidentally the same will as God, His Father.

Yes, we are all in God’s hands but we only need be afraid of dying if we don’t have Jesus.

Do you have Him in your life today?

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.

Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com

FINDING TRUE SIGHT

Can I pray for you in any way? Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com.

In Christ, Mark

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** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe the labor that is done on earth—people getting no sleep day or night—then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all their efforts to search it out, no one can discover its meaning. Even if the wise claim they know, they cannot really comprehend it.

Ecclesiastes 8:16-17 

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

What is the meaning of life?

Have you ever pondered it?

Many have and they are still pondering. This is because it’s impossible to know. God’s word is clear on this as we look at our scripture verses which end the 8th chapter of Ecclesiastes:

When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe the labor that is done on earth—people getting no sleep day or night—then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all their efforts to search it out, no one can discover its meaning. Even if the wise claim they know, they cannot really comprehend it. (vv 16-17)

No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun and no one can discover its meaning. If someone who alleges to be wise claims to know what life is all about, don’t believe him or her for they are chasing after folly and about to speak falsely.

No one knows the meaning of life because no one is God.

Note where Solomon went to get a glimpse of what God is doing in life. He applied his mind to know wisdom and since wisdom only comes from God, the Creator of Wisdom, then we know that Solomon applied his mind to God Himself. It was only through seeking God that he could have true sight.

Solomon applied his mind to God and the wisdom He provides while observing mankind and all the labor they were doing on earth, labor that often caused them to lose sleep. It was there that he saw people looking in all the wrong places for the meaning of life for it cannot be found anywhere on earth and no amount of labor invested in finding it will bear any fruit.

The only way we can find any insight into anything in the world is by seeking the One who can provide us absolute truth every time we ask for it. Like Solomon, we only find true sight through God.

So what do we find when we do this? What do we discover about the true meaning of life when we turn to God for the answers?

We find that Jesus is life.

The scriptures affirm this truth for Jesus Himself said that He is the Way and the Truth and the Life. The way to God the Father is through no one else but Him (John 14:6). This is because God loved us so much that He did not wish for us to perish when this life ends, condemned to death by our sinfulness. And so He willingly chose to sacrifice His only Son, Jesus Christ, for you, me, and every other living person He ever created and then gave us a choice in order to obtain eternal life, a life that would extend past worldly death and last forever (John 3:16).

What do we need to do in order to have this everlasting life?

Believe in Jesus as your Savior, declaring with your mouth and trusting in your heart that He is Lord and was raised by God from the dead to ascend into heaven and sit at His Father’s right hand (John:14:6, Romans 10:9).

Through Jesus, we find life now and for all eternity from the One who is life.

Through Jesus, the only One who can help the spiritually blind see, we are given true sight, led to Him by seeking the wisdom of God, His Father and ours.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.

Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com

ENJOY LIFE

Can I pray for you in any way? Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com.

In Christ, Mark

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk

** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn

** Become a Follower of The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 8:15 

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24 (NRSV)

Today, this day, is a new day, right? It’s not the same day as yesterday or the day before or the day before. Things will happen today in our world that will make it different and unique, special in some way. And the hope is that we will get to have another day tomorrow, a day that will write its own story as today becomes what we call history.

Yes, today is a new day and if you are reading this then you have life just as I have. The Lord has given us another opportunity to rise and breathe and live for Him and others. We get another chance to live and learn and love from the greatest teacher ever, God the Father, while following the example of the greatest role model we’ll ever have, God’s only Son, Jesus Christ.

Indeed, this is the day that the Lord has made and He has allowed us to experience it. We should be glad and rejoice in it, reveling in the occasion to serve the Lord in the way He has planned, following His will and way and purpose while receiving His wise counsel and direction. We should celebrate another day of experiencing the Lord’s love to the fullest, breathing in His grace and mercy while enveloped by His rich love.

This is the day that the Lord has made and we should rejoice and be glad, even if we are in the midst of hardship or affliction. For even in the difficult times, even in the times when this life might be nearing an end, we have hope, an eternal hope that says to death, you can’t have me because I belong to God and Jesus who have prepared a place for me to live forever (John 14:1-4), a place where I will be free from pain and sickness and difficulty and sin.

Of interest, the Psalmist wasn’t the only one who had the proper attitude about life and shared it with us through the word of God. For as we look at today’s words from Solomon, we find him also sending us a simple message, one that echoes the sentiments we read in the 118th Psalm. Look at his words again:

So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun.  Ecclesiastes 8:15

    

Enjoy life for there is nothing better than to eat and drink and be glad.

In other words, live in joy.

Friends, as Christians, there is no other life attitude we should have. While the world is shrouded in darkness, we are always in the light, walking with the One who is the Light of the world. When we allow His Spirit to dwell within our hearts and minds and souls, then His light shines through us so that others can see Him through the darkness they abide in. We are to draw others to the Light, Jesus, but we can’t do that if we choose to not live as children of light. We cannot afford to live in sorrow and sadness and depression and despair like we have no hope, no Savior. We can’t afford to live like everyone else in the world that don’t have or know Jesus.

No, we much enjoy life, we must live with energy and excitement and fervor. We must show the world that Jesus is alive in us for when we do, we will live in a way that is so strikingly different than the world that people will want to ask us what makes us so different. They will want to know how we can possibly live in a way that is always rejoicing and glad in each day, no matter what our circumstances might be. They will ask because they yearn for the kind of life we are living. They long to enjoy life.

When they do, it’s time we tell them about Jesus and the God who gave Him freely to save us all. We tell them the reason we enjoy life and live fearless in a world where fear often reigns supreme. We tell them about the hope and certainty we have despite the complete uncertainty the world is immersed in. We tell them that through Jesus, death is not the end but just the glorious beginning of a life liberated from all the hardships and afflictions of the world including sin. And in doing all this, we lead them to a place where they too can enjoy life and rejoice and be glad in it.

Friends, if you are a Christian, you have no reason to live in misery or gloom or melancholy. Rather, you have every reason to live in peace and bliss and delight.

In Jesus, you are saved. Enjoy life like you know it and help others find their way there as well.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.

Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com