Train of Thought

The Week of February 4-10, 2013

People live by promises. We live toward the future, what we hope or expect to achieve or to know. All people live by promises. The problem is that, for many people, their promises are too small, or too feeble.

This is true for a good many Christians, as well. God’s promises are so precious and very great because they actually enable us to partake of Him and to know Him in His glory (2 Pet. 1.4). If we truly know the Lord we will love Him and long to gain His promises. We will seek Him in prayer and worship, cast ourselves entirely upon Him, and submit our lives to the whole counsel of God in His Word. We will be shaped to love God and our neighbors by His Law and all His Word, and even the ways we use culture and participate in our society will manifest the love, peace, and joy that come from truly knowing the Lord.

But we need to focus on the promises of God and learn how to live toward them day by day. God is sovereign over all creation, all of life, every spiritual power, and all time. As we learn to fear the Lord and love Him, we will find it much easier to rest in His provision and live for His promises. All the promises of God come to fulfillment in Jesus Christ, Who resolves the turmoil in our souls and fits us by His Word and Spirit to live for His Kingdom now and in the days to come.

Our hope in the future is lodged in God and His promises, rooted in His Word, and realized, through the Spirit’s indwelling presence, in our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. As long as we’re living this way, we have nothing to fear, and every reason to rejoice.

Logos

The utter regularity of it all!
The summer in its turn gives way to fall,

the fall to winter, spring, and summer; then
the unfailing cycle starts its course again,

the night succumbing to the day, the day
to night. So life to death at last gives way,

albeit suddenly and brutally
at times. As when today, a sparrow’s free

unfettered flight was interrupted by
my plate glass door, and he was left to die

in stunned, astonished gasps upon my deck.
I warmed him in my hands, his broken neck

beyond repair, and held him as the light
departed from his eyes and death’s cold night

descended. Light to darkness, warmth to cold,
unfailing regularity as old

as being itself. And every sparrow’s fall
somehow fulfills a purpose in it all. 

From T. M. Moore, Fault Lines