October 16, 2023
Good Monday Morning, Imagine Church Family and Friends,
One of the television networks used to have a program entitled, Where Are They Now? It would feature recording artists or actors who once had a measure of fame. They once made headlines around the world or appeared before millions on TV. But years later they had fallen out of the limelight, and reporters had to really dig to even find out where they were living. Walter Cronkite, the famous CBS news anchor for several decades, had been retired for many years when a woman came up to him in a mall and said, “Pardon me, but didn’t you used to be Walter Cronkite?”
We all come on the stage of life for a while; some of us make a big splash, but we’re not here forever. As we age and the spotlight fades, it helps to remember that, if God made the world, then it belongs to Him; and if it belongs to Him, then God will look after it; and since you are a part of God’s world, God will look after you, too.
God managed this planet when Alexander the Great marched from Greece to Babylon, when the Roman Empire held the world without opposition, when Hitler scared Europe half out of its mind. Think about how God put Jesus in this world and promised that His kingdom would never end, and it hasn’t. So, if you ever lay in bed at night and wonder what’s going to happen to this world, you can say to yourself, “To heck with this,” and turn over and go to sleep. It’s easy to live with confidence when you believe this way.
Just remember that God’s presence gives us confidence, and God’s presence also gives us strength. John 14:16 records Jesus as saying, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another counselor to be with you forever, the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him, because the world neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you.”
The Greek word that translates as “counselor” combines the ideas of comfort and counsel. The Holy Spirit is a wonderful intercessor on our side, working for us, and with us. Through the Holy Spirit, God gives us the strength to bear whatever life hands us. There was a man in my little student church years ago who used to say, “God’s not going to let anything happen to me that He and I can’t handle together.” I couldn’t say it any better. You can depend on God to give you strength, just as certainly as day follows night.
In the strength that comes not from ourselves, but from God,
Bruce Jones
Bruce Jones, Pastor Imagine Church
