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- Written by: Don Goulding
A pile of Bibles, clothes, hypodermic needles, and twenty pounds of vitamins lay heaped in our living room. On our trips abroad, Dani and I minimize personal gear so we can courier supplies to the mission stations. For weeks, we toss everything we hope to bring into the corner of the room. Before we fly, we pack our suitcases and jettison everything over the weight limit.
Now I’m sorting through my pile of messy living. What will go with me into eternity and what gets left behind? I can’t gamble to have time to pack for eternity later. Rare is the person who goes on the big trip when they expect to go.
In Romans 14:17 Paul says, “For the kingdom of God does not consist of food and drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.” So temporal activities will be ditched, while righteousness, peace, and joy get to come along. Those are the commodities I’ll be keenly glad to have with me in eternity.
My heap of life is so mixed and my flight might leave any moment. I’m frantic to organize what fills my days. I’ve got to stuff in some right living while there’s still time.
Daily quiet times go into the travel bag, wasted hours are left behind. Teaching children about Jesus goes with, dropping quarters in a slot machine, not so much. What about that service day for the elderly? Did it add to righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirt? No, it only made me look good to others. Toss it and move on. Time is short.
Prayer: Lord of departures, please help me pack before it’s too late.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
For we know that if our earthly house, the tent we live in, is dismantled, we have a building from God, a house not built by human hands, that is eternal in the heavens. (2 Corinthians 5:1)
Our son, Aaron, invited Dani and me to his furry convention. Furries are a subculture of young adults who wear character costumes made of artificial fur. There were giant squirrels, puppy dogs, and fantasy creatures of rainbow-colored fuzz.
Aaron wore a brown and white Australian sugar glider costume. The large eyes and velvety ears made for a six foot tall huggable masquerade. Most of the participants were there to enjoy friends and laugh at one another’s creations. There were, however, a few mystics who believed they were born as a koala bear, or a dragon, and, somehow, got trapped in a human body.
I also take my temporal costume far too seriously. This world becomes my absorbed reality as I adopt the false identity of my physical aspect. I look at you and invent perceptions based on your exterior appearance or your present circumstances.
I have a furry mentality.
In actual truth, we are not our costumes. I am not only this physical body, permanently disfigured, and destined to sin forever. By joining myself to Jesus, I received a new existence. It came with a promise for a new body, and a new heaven and earth as well. For now, I am to live inside this character suit, but be fully aware of my true identity as I look out the temporary peepholes.
One day, the suits will come off, as they did on the mount of transfiguration. When the disciples saw Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, they appeared in glorious splendor with clothes as bright as a flash of lightning. That’s what lies beneath the furry suit—glory and splendor. For those in Christ, that’s the real you and the real me. We are the immortal children of God, destined to dwell in blinding majesty within his kingdom—not here, and not in these costumes.
Prayer: Mighty Redeemer, help me know who I really am in you.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose … (Romans 8:28)
When Paul wrote about all things working for good, it was after he’d been hunted, imprisoned, lashed five times, beaten with rods three times, shipwrecked three times, and pummeled with stones. God accomplished much through Paul but, more than anything, it was his patient endurance that made him an eternal hero.
In A.D. 64, Emperor Nero burned Rome, blamed it on the Christians, and then, “punished them with refined cruelty,” as an eyewitness reported. Some he dressed in animal skins and watched as dogs ate them alive. Others he lit as human torches in his garden. He held a flame near their tar covered feet and offered a last chance to go free, if they would renounce Jesus Christ and declare Caesar as their God.
The stalwart Christians refused to recant. Before blacking out from the excruciating flames, they sang praises to God, and were promoted to the heavenly realms as grand victors.
Paul succeeded in enduring to the end. Nero’s victims made it to the end. Now it’s my turn.
My challenges may not be as severe as the martyrs’, but I have to face the same darkness. By choosing to hold the hand of Jesus in even minor trials, rejection from the world is converted to heavenly applause, illness changes to celebrated fortitude, and temptation transforms into glorious overcoming.
My current life is not a disposable failure to be tolerated until heaven. The great purpose of these sacred days is that I should store up endurance so I can rejoice in those victories with Jesus for eternity. Now is the time spiritual giants are forged. All I need is uncommon joy in the face of common hardships.
Prayer: Sovereign King, work a holy endurance in me today.