The Latter End

It’s getting harder to summarize the big lessons God has been teaching me every two weeks – because I look back and realize how many of them there are! I’m going to share 3 quotes that have inspired me these past two weeks. I hope they are an encouragement to others, too!

1. “Always remember that the future comes one day at a time.” Dean Acheson

I had to chuckle when I read this quote. Who would have thought that a quote from a social marketing book would make it into my journal? But how I needed to be reminded about Time. How much I run ahead of tomorrow – looking and trying to figure it all out. And Jesus went even deeper than the previous quote when He said: “Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:34) The Psalm-writer also talked about time and he noted: “But I trust in you, O LORD; I say, ‘You are my God.’ My times are in your hands…” (Psalm 31:14-15a) What a comfort to realize my
time is in God’s hands.

2. “Only God can be God. Allow Him to live out His divine life through you. He is the only one who can.” Blackaby

This quote from Blackaby stopped me in my tracks. In these past two weeks I have felt overwhelmed and a bit at the end of my rope. And if I think I can do it all on my own….ha. Now, I do believe that there are lessons regarding piling my plate too high that I need to learn through the experience of this year. But I also need to learn that God is the only one who can sustain me and give me strength. And am I praying for His Spirit to work through me? Do I wait expectantly for how He will help me through what seems impossible? And do I realize that I am supposed to be merely a “channel” for the Lord to flow through to those I meet?

3. “Let us so live and enjoy the Lord that we will be glad when that latter end comes.” Dr. Arthur Garnes

I love listening to recordings of Dr. Garnes’ messages. He was such a wise, wise man. And whenever he spoke, he referred to Christians as “Beloved”. Because we are the beloved of the Lord! I went online today and found a message of his entitled, “The Latter End”, which looks
at the ends of people’s lives. It is even more meaningful to hear it because Dr. Garnes has since gone on to be with the Lord. Here are a few good points from it:

• “If only they were wise and would understand this and discern what their end will be!”
  Deuteronomy 32:29
• Ecclesiastes 7:8 “The end of a matter is better than its beginning…”
• Examples: Moses (Deut 34:5), Asa (2 Chronicles 16:13-14), Jehoram (2 Chronicles 21:18), Athaliah (2 Chronicles 23:21), Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 22:18), Abel (Hebrews 11:4)
• He talked of a man who said, “I don’t want to rust out; I want to wear out.”
• And then he said, “Oh, Beloved, what is your latter end going to be?”

I need to live life one day at a time. I need to not worry about the future…not even tomorrow. I need to let God live through me…and not struggle on my own. And I need to make sure that I press on. I don’t want to rust out…I want to live each day to the fullest and wear out…so that my
end is better than my beginning. It is one thing to start well - it is another thing to finish well.

As Dr. Garnes said, “Let us so live, that at the latter end God will say, ‘Well done’.” (Matthew 25:14)

And this year…may I complete it, running the race (of teaching, Masters work, coaching, etc) and finishing it, focused on only one pair of hands clapping: God’s.

Whose Face?

Faces. How important they are. How expressive they are.
I mean, really, who wants to say "Hi" to the back of someone's head?

And when talking about God – how much we need to see His face. The Bible is full of verses about God’s face. Some are expressions of people begging to see His face:

• I Chronicles 16:11 “Look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always.”
  


• Psalm 4:6 “…Let the light of your face shine upon us, O LORD.”
  


• Psalm 27:8 “My heart says of you, ‘Seek his face!’ Your face, LORD, I will seek.”
  


• Psalm 31:16 “Let your face shine on your servant; save me in your unfailing love.”
  


• Psalm 80:3 “Restore us, O God; make your face shine upon us, that we may be saved.” (80:7, 80:19)
  


• Psalm 119:135 “Make your face shine upon your servant and teach me your decrees.”
  

Some verses are records of what happens when God turned His face away:

• Deuteronomy 31:17 “On that day I will become angry with them and forsake them; I will hide my face from them, and they will be destroyed…”



• Isaiah 59:2 “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.”
  


• Ezekiel 15:7 “I will set my face against them. Although they have come out of the fire, the fire will yet consume them. And when I set my face against them, you will know that I am the LORD.”
  


• I Peter 3:12 “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”
  

And some verses show us the benefit of seeking after His face:

• Psalm 17:15 “And I – in righteousness I will see your face; when I awake, I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness.”
  


• Psalm 34:5 “Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.”

Why have I looked up all of these verses about God’s face? Well, you may say that God has started me on a “face” journey this past week and a half. It started with a message I heard last Sunday at my church. James, the guy who was speaking, said:

“It is a dangerous thing to come before the seat of power without being invited.”

He was trying to make us relook at a very familiar passage, Hebrews 4:16. In it we are told to “approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” That is not how most people approach royalty. We can even see how dangerous it normally is through stories found in Esther 4 (where she could die if she was not invited to approach the throne) and then Leviticus 10 (where two men were killed for not following God’s commands in approaching Him).

And yet….we are told to approach God's throne with confidence!
In doing so, we are seeking His face.

James ended his message by asking the question:

“What kind of insult is it to be invited by the King into His throne room and not bother to show up?”

Ooh. How often do I honestly approach His throne of grace and strive to seek His face?

So the question came up: WHOSE FACE DO I SEEK? God's? My own (in the mirror)? Others?

Throughout the week, I stumbled on other verses referring to God’s face (Jeremiah 18:17), but it wasn’t just God’s face that was brought to my attention this week. It was also… Facebook.

A few days ago, I saw a poem written & performed by Marshall Soulful Jones. The words were pretty thought-provoking:

“It used to be hard to connect when friends form cliques but it’s even more difficult to connect now that clicks form friends…I face facebook more than books face me hoping to book face the faces…I-pod, I-mac, I-phone, I-chat…I can do all of these things without making eye-contact.”

And if that wasn’t enough to get my thoughts going, I then got an email from a friend yesterday, with a link to his blog called To Facebook or Not (http://tofacebookornot.blogspot.com/). And that made me think a lot, too.

Really – Facebook is an amazing technology that can connect me with friends all over the world. But I have recently found that I am wasting and frittering time away on Facebook – learning about friends, and never truly talking with them.

Which brought me back to thoughts about Christ. Am I only learning about Christ? Do I truly talk with Him? Do I come before his throne of grace? Do I make time for truly seeking His face?

Exodus 33:11 tells us that “The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend…” Yes, please!

Last night, I decided to take the challenge and turn off Facebook for a month. It's not that I am saying I'd never turn it on again. But I think I need some time to focus on important things - not looking at pictures of people I haven't seen in 5 years.

And this morning…guess what thoughts kept coming up at church? Thoughts of God’s worthiness and seeking His face.

• Song of Solomon 5:10-16 “…He is altogether lovely. This is my lover, this is my friend…”
  


• II Corinthians 4:6 “For God, who said, ‘ Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”
  


• 
  
  We ended with a beautiful song called “Immanuel’s Land”. The last verse says:
  

“The bride eyes not her garment, But her dear Bridegroom’s face
I will not gaze at glory, But on my King of grace
Not at the crown He giveth, But on His pierced hand
The Lamb is all the glory Of Immanuel’s land.”

The face of Christ.

That is worth gazing at.

And my hope is that in this next month, with time freed from frittering on Facebook – I will spend some more time at Jesus’ feet, gazing up at His face, and learning how to better live like Him!

(….and spending some quality time with real, live people friends...not the facebook variety :))