Monday, April 27, 2009

The Assurance of Reassurance - April 27, 2009

Good Monday morning! What better day than Monday to give the assurance of reassurance? We have the assurance of eternal life from God. We believe in His Son and we are saved. Assured, solid, known, the promise of God; you can count on it with both hands and your toes and nothing can change God's great assurance. What about until then? This life brings a lot of worrisome or outright scary things. Today we have news of more job losses, each one a person with needs and cares; we also have a new swine flu epidemic to worry about, and the spectre of terrorism has not diminished. Where does a person turn for reassurance? Of course we know that we turn to the same place we received our assurance from, Jesus!

In the same gospels where we find John 3:16, our assurance, we find a little story about the lilies of the field. Remember how those flowers do not sew or reap and yet our Heavenly Father takes care of them? This reassurance about our earthly life came from the same person who gave us our assurance of eternal life. Jesus did not forget about the living we need down here on earth; he was here when he gave both assurances. Jesus knew our situation because He came down from Heaven and lived it. Even the world acknowledges that Jesus did live. Some may not want to acknowledge that He lives, but they do acknowledge that he lived. We know that He lives and since He lives, we have both assurance of eternal life and reassurance that our needs will be met today.

Speaking of needs, I had a fun memory this weekend after seeing an odd commercial about vans. In the 70's you may remember the custom vans that were all the rage for a while. Growing toward adulthood (still not sure if I'm there yet) at that time, I hoped and prayed for one of those vans. Around 30 years later I still do not have one and I have lived just fine without it. That desire evidently didn't match a need and it was fun to remember how much I thought that I needed one of those vans. I am glad our Abba knows exactly what I need and sometimes tells me "no, you don't need that." :-)

What else can we recall about the lilies of the field? I like the part where even though Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these... Jesus reminded us that we are much more valuable to God than those flowers. Much more valuable than... I can live with that!

Have a wonderful new week in Jesus!

Bucky

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