Monday 30 December 2013

The End of the Bible at the End of the Year

If you do such a thing, you're probably coming near the end of your Bible reading plan for this year. Bible reading plans are great, until they make you proud or discouraged, when you throw them away and read Galatians.

It's helpful to think about the end of time at the end of the year. What happens at the end of time? We are glorified and satisfied. We see Jesus face, which is eternal life, and our joy receptors have to be re-routed before they blow up. What happens at the end of the year tho? We wake up, and it's January, back to the beginning, back to Genesis, back to school, back to church. It's not Christmas songs anymore, but the slightly dull realisation that summer is still months away, and the only think to look forward to before then is your writer's birthday, (February 21st).

2013, for various reasons already documented on these pages, will not be a year i'll remember fondly. I hope it does let the door hit it on the way out. But how did we love Jesus in 2013? Did we continue? Is that what we'll look back on fondly as we voyage off into 2014? Our great acts of faith and service? Did we love Jesus well in 2013?

Probably not, and that's ok.

Will we love Jesus well in 2014?

Probably not, and that's ok.

Not ok because we're all antinomians and it doesn't matter how we live. We must kick that idea in the teeth. It's ok because Jesus is our champion, Jesus goes out and fights Goliath while we cower behind Him, Jesus loves the Father perfectly and is not afraid to call us brother as He represents us. Jesus loved, and served, and delighted the Father perfectly in 2013, and He will in 2014, and you know what, because He did, you did.

At the end of time, like at the end of the Bible, we'll see Jesus' face, we'll have eternal life. Why? Because we worked hard and paid our tithes? No! Because Jesus did, because He was perfect, because He paid what was needed. That was our lode star this year, and it must be next year. In triumph and tragedy, there is nothing else.

No comments:

Post a Comment