Spiritual Ponderings

And it will be said in that day, "Behold, this is our God for whom we have waited that He might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation." (Isaiah 25:9) This text has been taught to me all of my life as the words that God's people will exclaim when they finally see that Jesus is coming to rescue them at the Second Coming. I have heard these words quoted many times throughout my life and I am in no doubt that this is what will be said at that time. However, this text has come up in my mind several times recently and I have begun to see much more in here than ever before. Because of continued exercise in inductive study methods I now see much more in everything that I read and this verse is now much richer in meaning for me than ever before. The first thing that suddenly jumped into my attention was the waiting part. Now I am seeing some of the implications under this word more clearly. If God's people ...

Why was suffering such an important part of Jesus' life? We seem to naturally want to avoid suffering at all cost, yet in Christianity we talk about the importance of suffering as part of being identified with Jesus. There seems to be a great deal of confusion and even misleading information about this subject. What actually went into the sufferings of Jesus? It might be easy to see the physical sufferings He endured during His last few hours of life, but what about the rest of His life? We don't see Him being tortured by people, beaten up, whipped or spat upon during most of His ministry. But I suspect that suffering was still a large part of what He experienced throughout all of His life. In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered ; and having been...

As I was waking up this morning a verse came to my mind that stirred me with interest. It was one from Revelation that talks about the reward in heaven. I suppose part of the reason this happened was because I heard someone recently talking about receiving rewards and crowns when we all get to heaven. I have be rethinking that whole concept over the past few years in light of my new picture of God. I now wonder about what might be really important that we might value and consider as a “reward” for us when we have the true mind of Christ. The way that this idea of heavenly rewards has been taught most of my life is now rather discomfiting for me. It smacks way too much of selfishness, of looking forward to getting paid some sort of material compensation for some supposed achievements we have earned in our life “living for God”. Or worse yet, some even believe that the reward may involve some sort of “political” office or position of control they will receive in heaven gaining the a...