The End is Near!
Good Morning Friends,
Yesterday I was praying with one of my prayer partners who is caring for his elderly mother. She is in the last days, 99 years old, and the pain is difficult for my friend and his wife as caregivers. One of my pastor friends recently lost his mother. His mother had a very long illness. This is really hard emotionally for everyone, even professionals. I know. Still it is all a reminder of the wisdom in the knowledge that for each of us The End is Near!
Scripture: ‘I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
John 17:20-23 (NRSV)
The end of all things is near.
1 Peter 4:7 (NIV)
Message: The image for some might be of a man dressed like John the Baptist on a street corner with a placard warning the world of the upcoming disaster. We dismiss it. But the image is also of Jimmy Durante singing, “Did You Every Have a Feeling.” We know what is right and what is wrong but still wonder about going and staying. Friends, Jimmy Durante makes standing up and sitting down funny but the seriousness of the situation is that as time goes by we all will face death. The only do, re, me, fa, so, la, ti do we can hope for is scaled in harmony with Jesus. That is why as Jesus prepared himself for taking on the sins of the world and a humiliating painful death, he prayed for our unity, grace and the glorification of God in our actions even today. He prayed for our oneness in the love of God. Jesus is our inheritance. The image I think we are to have then is of a man on his knees praying in a garden…of a Jesus coming to bring us home. Friends, the question is not whether we will die but whether we will live. The question is whether on the way to our crosses we too will serve others. We have been given such a wonderful opportunity to glorify God. So we are to live expectantly. We are to live responsibly. We are to live in faith like there is no tomorrow because one day we will be right.
Pray we learn how to love, share, and care for one another. Pray we not complain even in our pain. Pray we put our egos aside and serve one another. Pray we feel the urgency of making a commitment to unity with Christ and one another. Pray we be hospitable to others. Pray our love is fervent. Pray our love is forgiving. Pray we glorify God because Jesus prayed that we would.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 