Our Rock & Our Endurance

I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. It’s a trustworthy statement:

If we died with Him, we’ll also live with him;
If we endure, we’ll also reign with him;
If we deny him, he’ll also deny us;
If we’re faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself. 2 Timothy 2:10-13

Sometimes people ‘feel’ far from God – distant, and alienated.  For those of us who have given our lives to him in trust and obedience … feeling far from God is the only time we really feel lonely.  It’s a dark, awful loneliness for us, because we are the people who have give up everything to be His, exclusively.  And when we then feel far from even Him (the only One we have left) – it’s bleak, indeed.

This passage in Paul’s second letter to the young preacher makes me understand something about our relationship with God.  So long as we are enduring and faithful, we have hope that we’ll “live with Him,” “reign with Him,” and that we are ‘those who are chosen,’ and obtaining salvation and eternal glory!  That’s not just good news, it’s great news.

But notice that the promises are conditional.  How many times in the section above do you see the word: “If”?

We must endure and be faithful.  But then pay attention to that last line about God: “He remains faithful.”  No matter what we do … He is the same.  So if that’s true, the times we “feel” far from God, it’s not God who has left, it’s we who have wandered away from Him.  He is the Rock.  He’s stationary, never moving – in fact, He is unmovable!

Isaiah wrote: “All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but Yahweh has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Jesus.” (53.6)

Feeling far from God?

Come home.

You will find Him right here, waiting for you – waiting to welcome you and forgive you.

Just come home – and then stay, endure, resist the call of the wild