Grains of Sand

Pixabay Paul Tripp writes: " Perhaps we can find no more real and present argument for heaven than the angst that we all carry in the face of the temporary and dissatisfying awes of the present." He then quotes C. S. Lewis: "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." Placing our focus in life on eternity's destination changes what life looks like as it is lived out with anticipation of our arrival there. Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools. They go on from strength to strength till each appears before God in Zion.  —Psalm 84:5-7 When Peter writes his first letter, he addresses it to " …exiles scattered ."  "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To God’s elect,  exi...

“ Watch! ” It would be difficult to miss that word when reading the passages from Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21 that describe the events surrounding both the destruction of Jerusalem shortly after the death of Christ, and His Second Coming. “ Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come .” (Matthew 24:32) “ Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come .” (Mark 13:33) “ Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn .” (Mark 13:35) “ What I say to you, I say to everyone, ‘Watch! ’” (Mark 13:37) “ Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man. ” (Luke 21:36). One of the difficulties in these passages has been in sorting out which statements have to do with the destruction of Jerusalem and which with the second com...

Today we often hear the expression, “God showed up.” God can’t NOT show up. He is present everywhere, so beyond our capacity to understand that it isn’t just a piece of Him that is presence in every place all the time, but all of Him all the time. But what people are trying to say with that phrase “God showed up” is that God revealed Himself by doing something special at that moment. In John 1 we read this ominous statement: “ He [Christ] was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him ” (John 1:10, 11). God was there, but hardly anyone was looking for Him, or noticed Him, or wanted Him. We know that Jesus did not come as the majority of people expected Him to come. Most wanted their Messiah to come at the head of a heavenly army to overthrow the Romans and to free them from being under the thumb of a foreign ruler. Jesus came alone to restore a relationship and to free ...

My connection with Margaret Haines goes back to my childhood. My mother used to do light housework at Margaret’s place during a period in her life when she was still working and looking after her aunt and uncle in her home. Margaret loved children—I won’t say “kids” because Margaret would not have approved—and she loved books. The teenagers who remember her will tell you that she was good to them. She was the driving force behind The Northland Bible Bookroom in our church and was absolutely dogged about getting people to buy good books—even to writing articles for The Timmins Daily Press promoting the books and the bookroom. If people didn’t come into the bookroom, or even if they did, she’d take the books she thought were appropriate for them and pursue them until she could catch them long enough to explain why they urgently needed to read that book. It was not a matter of sales, it was always a matter of people and what might be meaningful to those people. In fact,...

Reading: 2 Corinthians 1-4 When Paul writes his second letter to the Corinthians, the resurrection theme we saw in the first letter appears again. The apostle gently reminds his readers that someday they, like him, will be presented before God. Those who accept the message of reconciliation because of their labor of love will bring great glory to God on that day… “ Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For the light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes no on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal ” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18, NIV). Paul has described some of what he has gone through as a messenger of the Gospel (4:8-11). He had been beaten, left for dead, shipwrecked, persecuted, imprisoned, misrepresented, hungry, cold, and frustrated by a physical limitation that held him ...

Christmas Memories 5 Today marks the anniversary of my mother's passing. But please don't think this post is going to be a "downer." On the contrary, though that Christmas some eighteen years ago was the worst Christmas my brother and I will ever experience, it morphed into perhaps the best one anyone could have planned. I didn't have the same plans that God did for that Christmas. My father had passed away three months earlier, and my greatest desire was to make this first Christmas without dad a good one for mom. The baking and gifts that I planned to take north with me were done when I got the call to tell me that mom had suffered a massive heart attack. I wondered if I would make it home in time to see her. All night on the bus (the only way I could make the trip north just days before Christmas) I willed the driver to go faster. When I arrived at the hospital direct from the bus station, mom actually looked good. By the afternoon, she was failing and shortly ...