Keep Looking Up!
If you’re like me, you’re amazed at the speed of how fast this year has gone by. It only seemed like yesterday that 2024 was off to a roaring start. Now 2024 is all but gone. We have watched winter give way to spring, and then survived the dog days of summer. Fall is in full swing, and a little chill in the air tells us it’s almost Thanksgiving and Christmas.
It’s a time to be thankful, grateful and hopeful. It’s a time to reflect, contemplate and plan for the future. It’s a time to enjoy family, friends and pets. It’s a time to rejoice, renew and relax.
God is indeed good! All of these things that we experience only come because of a warm, winsome and gracious God. He provides. He sustains. He saves to the uttermost. He lifts us up. He is what it is all about! Remember that. In our hectic, hurried and harried life, the world goes merrily about its business and tries to tempt us to think all things are about us. But they’re not! Everything is about our Sovereign Lord! He is our Creator. He is our Redeemer. He is our Provider. As Paul says, He is “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith,” Hebrews 12:2.
With that in mind, I direct your attention back to the Bible for a few moments. Before Jesus’ birth, the Scriptures prophesied He would be born in Bethlehem. “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times,” Micah 5:2.
The Scriptures helped God’s people know approximately when Jesus would arrive and what His mission would be. “Know and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’ It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing,” Daniel 9:25-26.
The good news is that Jesus arrived exactly at the right time and the right place. His first coming guarantees His Second Coming! Jesus said it Himself. “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am,” John 14:1-3.
Our task is to keep looking up and keep looking forward to His soon coming. John reminds us of this in Revelation 1:7. “‘Look, He is coming with the clouds,’ and ‘every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him’; and all peoples on earth ‘will mourn because of him.’ So shall it be! Amen.”
Remember, my friends, as you enjoy this season, it is all about God. Jesus is to return soon. “Lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near,” Luke 21:28.