Those unexciting, even boring portions of the Bible cannot compare in terms of interest with such texts as the parting of the Red Sea, the miracle of the sun standing still while Joshua and his fellow warriors engaged their and Yahweh’s enemies, and certainly the Psalms, which resonate with believers because “we meet ourselves in them.” The Incarnate One’s display of omnipotence, as seen in feeding five thousand from five loaves and two fish, healing congenitally blind people, and dismissing demons with a word of command, provides compelling reading. Such texts remind us afresh of God’s power, wisdom, grace, and mercy, eliciting praise and proving their profitability by nourishing us on the words of faith.

However, passages such as Joshua 15 do not offer us such spiritual usefulness (read it again or for the first time). That passage contains sixty-three verses, which are, for the most part, stultifying to the less-than-insightful reader. They are a recitation of Judah’s inheritance in the promised land. The rehearsal of that historical event includes geography (rivers, cities, towns, boundaries); all places that are foreign to many Bible readers.

There is partial relief when the narrative breaks its pattern and includes information about Caleb. Other than that, the passage seems devoid of any spiritual nourishment for the soul. How is it profitable?

This is where we go wrong in our assessment. God did not put words in the Bible to fill up the white spaces. He reveals Himself with His words! Even the seemingly dull parts carry His self-revelation that is profitable for us.

In his commentary on Joshua, Old Testament scholar, professor, and pastor Dale Ralph Davis answers our queries as he expounds on the chapter. “First of all, then let us stress that the chapter deals with the details of God’s promise to Joshua. Chapter 15 is simply one of the birds on the tree of Genesis 12 and Genesis 15. The land promised had long ago been given to Abraham (Genesis 12:6-7; 15:7-21) and was often reaffirmed and was picked up in Joshua 1; here we see part of its concrete fulfillment.”

Further commenting on the concretized nature of God’s word in history, Davis states: “God’s word is seldom about some bare, purely spiritual inner abstraction (dealing with ideas rather than events, definition supplied by this writer). The God of the Bible tends to be concrete, his gifts tangible and visible. The inheritance He bequeaths is not an idea but boundaries, not thoughts but towns: in a word, real estate.

            Yahweh has always been this way and His infleshment is the great witness to the fact (John 1:1, 14). We must realize that even enjoying the grand act of the Kingdom of God will not mean floating as a beeping soul in some sort of spiritual ether but walking around with a resurrection body in new heavens and a new earth (Revelation 21-22). So, perhaps we can say that Israel’s concrete and tangible Canaan is a foreshadowing of our own.”

            Davis is right! The actualization of divine promise in a real, visible, tangible (plow the field), physical reality, as demonstrated by Joshua 15, helps us to see the profit in a text that seems, on its surface, to be anything but useful to us. For such texts do not yield their value in superficial reading any more than diamonds lie on top of the earth. Scripture must be mined, and then it will yield its spiritual wealth to one willing to dig.

Alva J. McClain writes in his book Daniel’s Prophecy of the 70 Weeks, “Proper understanding of the seventy weeks of Daniel not only safeguards the Christian against the elaborate guesswork of those who persist in setting dates for the Lord’s return but furnishes the infallible key to real chronology of all New Testament prophecy.” McClain is correct in his assessment of the indispensable role of Daniel’s seventy weeks (seventy sevens).

Our Lord Jesus Christ used the text in His Own prophetic teaching recorded in the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24-25), specifically, Matthew 24:15. Also, the apostle Paul employed the teaching of Daniel in his explanation to the Thessalonians regarding the Day of the Lord and its timing. In the Apocalypse (Revelation), the Apostle John also showed the connection of the prophecy of the seventy sevens to the events prophesied in chapters 11-13. So Matthew, 2 Thessalonians, and Revelation all connect future prophetic events from our standpoint in the present to the ancient, exact, and complex prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27.

Therefore, Daniel’s prophecy in that passage and prophecies elsewhere in his book are critical to unlocking other prophetic truth in Scripture. Moreover, the prophecy of the seventy sevens is profoundly important with respect to the truthfulness of Scripture. It provides “evidential value” for the veracity of God’s Word. This is recognized by the fact that the first sixty-nine sevens (483 years) prophesied in the passage has already been fulfilled. Thus, they are a matter of history. This is another affirmation of the fact of the Divine inspiration of the Bible (2 Timothy 3:16). The prophecy, for example, foretold five centuries in advance the very day Messiah would ride into Jerusalem and present Himself to the Jews as Messiah (Daniel 9:25; Matthew 21:1-9).

With the current crisis, Hamas’ attack on Israel, underway, the question looms in the minds of many: What does Bible prophecy have to say about this turn of events in Israel’s experience?

First, the current conflict fulfills the prediction in Daniel 9:26, which, in part, states, “even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined.” Earlier in the verse, the prediction regarding the city and sanctuary that is Jerusalem and the temple is given. That part of the prophecy refers to A.D. 70 when the Roman general Titus destroyed both. Jesus also foretold this event in Matthew 24:1-2.

As bad as the current war is for Israel, it will be worse for that nation in the future. The coming tribulation period prophesied by John in the Book of Revelation (6-18) will be, as Jeremiah 30:7 predicts, “The time of Jacob’s distress.” Jeremiah additionally writes in that verse that it will be a unique time of trouble for Israel. This tribulation period is also known as Daniel’s seventieth seven, the final seven years or 490^th seven of his prophecy.

The antichrist will make a covenant with Israel and break in the middle of the seven-year period, 3 ½ years into the agreement (Daniel 9:27). The book of Revelation tells us that Jacob’s distress will be intense in those final years. They are called the Great Tribulation (Revelation 11:2; 12:6; 13:5). During the final half of the tribulation period, the whole world will give its allegiance to the antichrist or suffer persecution and death.

Significantly, the final event of the Great Tribulation is the campaign or war of Armageddon. In this war, all the armies of the earth will gather against Israel and, in one last and unsuccessful attempt, seek to eradicate the Jewish people (Revelation 14:19-20; 16:12-16; 19:19-21).

But at His second coming, the Lord Jesus Christ will fight for His people, Israel. He will destroy armies of the world arrayed against His people (Revelation 19:11-21). The Lord Jesus will establish His thousand-year reign (Revelation 20:1-7). Israel will have a central role in the millennial kingdom of Christ on the earth (Isaiah 2:2-4; 9:6-7; 11:1-10; 19:23-25; 45:22-25; 56:6-8; Zechariah 8:20-23; 14:16-19).

Israel’s future is secure as to its national existence and future blessing. This is so because it has been Divinely predetermined. No man, nation or nations, armies or Satan can alter what God has decreed, period!

*You may access the Sunday school lesson “God’s Program for Israel” by clicking here.

Additional resources for this subject matter can be found in the MacArthur Study Bible study notes on the Book of Daniel. For a chronology of Daniel 9:24-27, consult Harrold Hoehner’s Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ.

John MacArthur notes this change among evangelicals.  “The evangelical movement of today is no longer unified on this issue.  Some who call themselves evangelicals are openly insisting that faith alone in Jesus is not the only way to heaven.  They are now convinced that people of all faiths will be in heaven.  Others are simply cowardly, embarrassed, or hesitant to affirm the exclusivity of the Gospel in an era when inclusivity, pluralism, and tolerance are deemed supreme virtues by the secular world.  They imagine it would be a tremendous faux pas to declare that Christianity is the truth and all other faiths are wrong.  Apparently, the evangelical movement’s biggest fear today is that we will be seen as out of harmony with the world.”

For some evangelicals, Jesus is still necessary for salvation, but explicit knowledge of Him is not essential for salvation.  These evangelicals are inclusivists.   Ramesh Richard writes, “Inclusivists assert that Jesus is decisive as the ground of one’s salvation, but not necessary as the content of one’s faith.  So faith explicitly in Christ is not critical for salvation.”

The aforementioned positions within the framework of evangelicalism are a clear denial of biblical revelation about the exclusivity of Christ and the explicitness of knowledge about Him for salvation.

Scriptural testimony to these truths is listed below, beginning with the uniqueness or exclusivity of Christ.

Jesus’ own assertion about His unqualified exclusivity is expressed in John 14:6.  He is the way.  That is, He is the way to God.  Our Lord does not offer Himself as one of many ways.  He categorically claims to be the only way to God.  Christians then are only echoing the authoritative Word of Incarnate Deity.  Further, Jesus says that He is the truth.  He is the truth of God.  He is the consummate expression of the divine mind.  Jesus is the life of God.  The eternal life of God comes from Jesus Christ.  Without exception, no human being can come to the Father apart from Jesus Christ.

The apostle Peter followed His Lord in proclaiming the particularity of Christ for salvation.  In Acts 4:12, the words no one else translate the Greek allō, other of the same kind.  Peter said that there is no other name of the same kind.  Further, the apostle stated that there is “no other name.” The word other is the Greek heteron.  The point is that no other name at all than that of Jesus “has been given among men by which we must be saved.”

The apostle Paul clearly states that Jesus occupies a unique position between God and men (I Timothy 2:5).

Explicit Knowledge of Christ

Acts 16:31 shows that salvation requires precise knowledge of Jesus Christ.

In Romans 10:9-17 we see that knowledge of Christ is indispensable as content of faith for salvation.

Additionally, the Reformers were not ambiguous regarding the exclusivity and explicitness of Christ regarding salvation. They coined a phrase written in Latin to underscore the supreme importance of Christ in salvation, solus Christus.

Solus Christus means Christ alone. Christ alone is sufficient for salvation. His work of redemption does not need any additions to meet divine requisites to provide salvation for sinners. His work is sufficient. Christ alone saves. This means that people are “saved solely by His merits and not a combination of what Christ has done and our grace-empowered cooperation (Romans 3:21-31; 5:1-11; 8:1-4),” according to Stephen Wellum.

This is in contradiction to what the Roman Catholic church teaches. “A gospel that fails to confess solus Christus is no gospel at all,” says Wellum. Again, Wellum writes, “Martin Luther beautifully captures the Reformation’s affirmation of Christ alone in a letter to his supervisor, Johann Von Staupitz: ‘I teach that people should put their trust in nothing but Jesus Christ alone, not in their prayers, merits, or their own good deeds.’”

Those who deny the truths stated in this article align themselves with antichrists who are determined to lead souls to perdition. Those who affirm the truths in this article side themselves with God and His authoritative Word.

The First Commandment is without ambiguity in announcing, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). It is the innate, depraved nature of sinful man to substitute for the true God a deity of his own making, whether physical or mental, even creatures made by the Creator (Romans 1:25).

Satan audaciously sought worship from the Creator Himself. During His wilderness temptation, Jesus, God incarnate, faced the onslaught of satanic temptations, including a solicitation to “fall down and worship me” (Matthew 4:9). This ridiculous offer from the evil one was met with the clarion declaration from Jesus’s lips, “Go, Satan! For it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only” (Matthew 5:10). Fallen creatures either worship something other than the true God or seek worship of themselves—the two are often the same.

In John’s gospel, our Lord Jesus enunciated that God the Father is seeking true worshippers. These are the ones He will deliver from their sins upon receiving Jesus as Savior and Lord. It is they, and they alone, as Jesus told the woman at the well who worship in spirit and truth (John 4:24).

The words spirit and truth are definitional regarding true worship. First, the word spirit refers to the inner man, the heart, the center of man’s being, will, and thinking. It is in the heart that a man or a woman believes that God raised Jesus from the dead and is saved (Romans 10:9).

In the context of Jesus’s teaching in John 4, the heart’s attitude is the focus. To worship in the spirit is to have the proper heart attitude. The wrong heart attitude is disobedient to the Lord and his revealed truth (Amos 5:21-24; Matthew 15:1-9).

Truth in the Johannine passage refers to conformity to Scripture. It is in Scripture that God has revealed the truth about Himself, Christ, righteousness, sin, eternal life, and a host of other eternal realities. As stated, true worship comes from inside, from a spirit or heart that is obedient to God’s truth. And this truth will be lived out in the believer’s life. It is not merely the rituals or ceremonies of public worship.

Philippians 3:3 is clear in defining who true worshippers are. They worship by the Spirit of God. That is, He generates our inner worship. So, it is supernatural in origin. The Holy Spirit indwells all genuine Christians (Romans 8:9) and enables them to offer acceptable worship to God. The word worship means “to render respectful service.”

We may also state that worship includes ascriptions of glory to God. We ascribe glory to Him when we recognize His uniqueness in our praise to Him. This praise will laud the triune God’s perfections: such as sovereignty, omniscience, omnipresence, aseity (independence), eternality, omnisapience (all-wise), love, grace, mercy, faithfulness, holiness, and other attributes by which He reveals Himself in Scripture.

Scripture discloses the profound importance of the worship of God. For He is God, and the proper response to Him is worship, but worship that is consistent with His self-revelation. Otherwise, it is illegitimate and will be repudiated, as the Hebrews discovered from the prophet Amos (Amos 5:21-24).

The subject of the worship of God covers the entirety of the Bible. Therefore, the study of this theme cannot be exhausted by any means in a few sentences.

May your own pursuit of the topic yield innumerable spiritual riches to your souls and enhance your understanding of His glory.

Sole Deo Gloria (To God alone be the glory).

Scripture presents promises from God to us regarding the efficacy of our petitions, supplications, and intercessions before Him. No one who approaches the Almighty with prayer requests is on a fool’s errand. Some of the promises that elicit from us frequent engagement in prayer to the Lord are marked with encouragement. For example, Jeremiah 33:3, “Call to me and I will answer you, I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.” He implored Jeremiah to pray to Him even as He does us. Other passages, too, provide us with encouragement to come boldly before His throne of grace: Mark 11:22-24; James 5:17-18; 1 John 5:14-15.

Prayer is an act of faith and worship. As we come to His behest, we do so in faith and worship Him as we do. Joel Beeke writes, “the most fundamental act of faith and worship is described in Scripture as calling upon the Name of the Lord (Genesis 4:26; Romans 10:11-13). When we call upon the Name of the Lord, we call upon everything that God is—all that he has revealed Himself to be.”

 And what has He disclosed about Himself to us? Among His disclosures are omnipotence, grace, mercy, kindness, sovereignty, etc. Divine sovereignty over all things is not, or should not, ever be an inhibition to prayer, rather it is an incentive to it. For if God did not rule over all, and was not able to bring His will to pass in answering our prayers, our petitions would be an exercise in impotence at best. And at worst, a journey into the world of fantasy.

Jonathan Edwards states, “God has been pleased to constitute prayer to be the antecedent to the bestowment of mercy, and He is pleased to bestow mercy in consequence of prayer, as though He were prevailed upon by prayer.” God in His grace, permits us to participate in accomplishing His purposes in his church, our lives, and the world.

Prayer is a part of faithful discipleship. The earliest disciples of our Lord were men and women who practiced prayer (Acts 2:42; 3:1). Prayer was also commanded of believers then and remains a duty for followers of the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 12:12; Colossians 4:2; 1 Thessalonians 5:17).

Our intercessions at our Father’s throne are to include the lost. The Lord is entirely able to save without our involvement, but it has pleased Him to grant us the privilege of appealing to Him for souls (Romans 10:1; 1 Timothy 2:1-4). Gospel presentations to sinners and petitions on their behalf are two weapons in our spiritual arsenal that the Holy Spirit utilizes to bring the elect to salvation. Neither of these should be neglected by the saints in their spiritual responsibility before the Lord.

Prayer, as a matter of spiritual reality, connects the believer to the Omnipotent One. There is, therefore, no power that can withstand prayer, because there is no power that can withstand the Almighty. Is it any wonder then that Martin Luther once asserted, “prayer is the mightiest of all weapons that created natures can wield?”

To put it succinctly, Scripture is about God. He is the hero of the Bible’s story line, and, in fact, He is its author. The reverent reader is awed by what He reveals about Himself on Scripture’s pages.

One of the attributes of God, what He is like, is unmentioned in the litany above. That attribute is mercy.

Mercy describes God “as having perfectly deep compassion for people such that He demonstrates benevolent goodness to those who are in a pitiable or miserable condition.”[i] Human beings are often found in a pitiable and miserable condition. Mercy suits their case.

This attribute is relevant to us because we live in a world where the problems of sin bring difficult conditions for us. However, our God is the answer for these circumstances. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 1:3 that God is the Father of mercies.

Like men who beget children, God the Father begets mercies. Without His exercise of this attribute, no mercy would ever be born into the world. Such mercy was displayed in the life of Epaphroditus, a man whom Paul called “My brother, and fellow worker and fellow soldier” (Philippians 2:25). This valued Christian brother and worker came to the threshold of death in his service to the apostle Paul. Epaphroditus risked his life, Paul recounts in Philippians 2:27, 30.

This noble fellow worker of Paul’s was willing to lay down his life in sacrificial service to Paul in the cause of Christ (1 John 3:16; Philippians 2:30). The interposition of divine mercy preserved Epaphroditus’s life (v. 27).

It is the Lord who preserves and delivers from death. Psalm 68:20 asserts, “and to God belong escapes from death.” “God in His mercy sets His power on work to help us,”[ii] said Thomas Watson.

Divine mercy had a ripple effect, like a stone creates when it is thrown across a pond. Paul was a recipient of the blessing of mercy extended Epaphroditus. Paul would have experienced compounded sorrow if Epaphroditus had expired (v. 27).

The effect of God’s mercy to Epaphroditus did not stop with the apostle, it reached the Philippian church. Epaphroditus was able to return to them and, presumably, continue his ministry among them.

Contemplate for a moment how many instances you know of or have experienced when God set His power to work in mercy to deliver you from a “pitiable or miserable condition”. I have contemplated one episode of His mercy in the life of my family many times.

My sister, during our childhood in the 1960s, became seriously ill. It was during the Christmas season. Surgery was performed on her, but after the procedure, a bodily function needed to happen for her to recover and return to full health. The surgeon intimated that it was out of his hands. Indeed, it was in the hands of God! I prayed (as did others). I prayed repeatedly in this time subsequent to the conclusion of the operation. The words of my youthful intercession are unremembered and, no doubt, unremarkable. But the God of heaven heard me with merciful ears and set His power to work on behalf of my sister. His mercy was not only granted to me, but to our parents, our grandmother, and other extended family members.

Often times we speak of collateral damage. Can we speak of collateral mercy? Today, as I write these words, my sibling is the married (40+ years) mother of two grown children and two grandchildren.

What about those instances when God chooses not to intervene with temporal mercy and health fails and death ensues? For the believer, there is a greater aspect of God’s mercy. We’ve experienced it in our salvation (Ephesians 2:4).

His mercy to us in this regard is made explicit in Titus 3:5. “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.”

Because of His saving mercy to us through our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we exit this world at death and enter into the immediate presence of our Savior.

[i] Biblical Doctrine

[ii] Body of Divinity

No matter the circumstances we face, or what we see in the world, we are assured from Scripture that God is in charge (Psalms 115:3; 135:6). Believers routinely affirm this truth by asserting “God is still on the throne.” That assurance is the foundation upon which we may bend our knees in prayer. For if He is not Ruler of all, prayer is but a pious wish. We know, however, that because our God rules every inch of the material and immaterial realms of existence, our prayers, which are consistent with His will and nature, will effect change.

The change caused by our prayers is not to change God’s mind or purposes. For His purpose is eternally established (Ephesians 3:11). But our prayers are a part of bringing divine plans to fruition.

Christians are commanded in Scripture to pray, even be devoted to prayer (Colossians 4:2). Prayer by followers of Christ is never viewed in the Bible as unnecessary because of the Sovereignty of God. The Sovereignty of God grants to us assurance that our petitions, supplications, and intercessions can be answered. A God who is not sovereign is not worthy of the name. In fact, to be sovereign is to be God.

The Westminster Confession of Faith states, in part, that God “ordains whatsoever comes to pass.” This is not a statement dreamed up by theologians but reflects biblical teaching (Ephesians 1:11). How does one relate this ordination or decree of all that happens in human history to prayer?

God uses means to accomplish His ends. Whatever He has decreed or planned to happen in the universe, He has also ordained the means by which it will be done. The prayers of the saints are an ordained means by which God achieves His ends in our life, our church, and in human history. Needless to say, we do not know what God has ordained. We are not privy to the pretemporal counsel of the Trinity. Such things cannot be made known to us, apart from divine disclosure. The secret things belong to the Lord (Deuteronomy 29:29).

Richard Phillips gives an additional way in which we can know what God has ordained. He writes, “We do not know what God ordains until it happens.” So then, pray and watch to see what happens.

During biblical days, believers did not allow the sovereignty of God to inhibit their commitment to prayer. Isaac, the son of Abraham, the inheritor of the Abrahamic covenant, which features the divinely given promise of an innumerable number of descendants, faced a problem. He and his wife, Rebekah, remained childless after two decades of marriage. Did Isaac throw up his hands in resignation and mutter, “God is sovereign?” No, not on your life! The man prayed and because Yahweh is sovereign, He opened Rebekah’s womb (Genesis 25:25).

Who knew better than anyone divine sovereignty and the efficacy of prayer than God incarnate, the Lord Jesus Christ? He prayed and taught us to do the same (Matthew 6:5-15; 7:7-1; Mark 1:35; 3:13; Luke 11:1, 5-13; 18:1-18). Scripture teaches the sovereignty of God in salvation (Matthew 11:25-27; John 6:44, 65; Acts 13:48; Romans 9:1-23). Yet prayer for the lost is never ruled out of bounds for believers but is always in play.

The apostle Paul wrote a closely reasoned exposition of the sovereignty of God in Romans 9:1-23, but he also expressed his own yearning to be cut off from Christ for the salvation of his “kinsmen according to the flesh” (Romans 9:3) and prayed to God for their salvation (Romans 10:1). Not only was that his personal desire and prayer, but by the superintendencies of the Holy Spirit, Paul enjoined the believers in Ephesus to pray for the lost (1 Timothy 2:1-4).

Our responsibility before God is to offer up prayers and intercessions indiscriminately for the unregenerate. Again, God has ordained prayer as a means to accomplish His divine objectives. It is a vital part of His sovereign operations.

We should stand in awe that the Sovereign One, who needs nothing from us (Acts 17:25), who does not need our participation in what He does (remember Creation Week), would sovereignly choose to include our prayers as instruments for His purposes on earth. What an impetus for us to eagerly approach Him in prayer.

One did not approach an ancient king unless permitted to do so. To come near a king, the royal scepter had to be extended. King Ahasuerus extended the golden scepter to Esther, showing she had obtained favor in his sight (Esther 5:2). Our heavenly Father, the King of kings, has extended the scepter to us. We have obtained His favor by His grace in Christ. Let us, then, enter the throne room of the King and make our petitions known.

To answer our query, we turn to Scripture.  We ask what God was doing in 2020 because Scripture is relentless in asserting the sovereign governance of God over the entire universe—both the macrocosmic and microcosmic senses (1 Chronicles 29:11; Psalms 115:3; 136; Daniel 4:34-35; 1 Timothy 6:15; Revelation 19:6).

We take comfort in this fact because neither Covid-19, the racial reckoning, nor any other events we experienced were outside the scope of Divine control.  The Lord did not cede His rule over human affairs for even one millisecond, let alone for the 365-day transit of the earth around the sun.

We understand, because God reveals it, that He is never without purpose in whatever He does.  We cannot answer all of the whys.  But we can answer some of them because our Lord has disclosed them to us in His Word. 

First, as I explained in a sermon delivered in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, disease is an outworking of the Fall.  The Fall refers to when man first disobeyed God.  The catastrophic effect of that rebellion is death and disease (death decreed by God).  We are living with the results of the spiritual mutiny that transpired in the Garden of Eden. 

This truth, then, informs us about life under the sun.  To ignore the biblical record of Genesis 3’s explanation of world history in general, and disease and death in particular, is to cover one’s eyes at high noon on a cloudless summer day and proclaim that the sun is not shining.  It is not realistic.

Second, the events of the previous year remind us that the world is not our home in an ultimate sense.  There are plenty of reminders of this in Scripture, but it seems that the Lord underlines them when trouble meets us.

As Christians we have dual citizenship—earth and heaven.  But the more important one is heaven.  About this, Paul writes in Philippians 3:20, “Our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ”.   The Lord Jesus Christ will return and take us home (John 14:1-3; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).  So, we look for a better city and country (Hebrews 11:10, 16), our home, the place of our eternal citizenship, purchased by our Savior’s sacrificial, substitutionary death for us.

Our hope, then, must not ever reside in this life and world, but it is to be fixed on the grace brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:13).  We need to be reminded that life here is temporary.

Third, while we remain here and endure the maladies and tragedies common to mankind, we count on our Lord’s personal and purposeful involvement in our lives.  Romans 8:28 and 29, and other texts, verify this for us.  We are assured, therefore, that for us, difficulties, trials, and troubles are not wasted but are spiritually transformative. 

Fourth, when 2020 began, we had no idea what we would encounter as the year unfolded, but that is true for any year.  Our church’s motto for the year now gone was “2020 By Faith.”  Little did we know how apropos that motto would be.  Our motto will not be the same for 2021, but the sentiment expressed by it will be.  We will, for a while at least, still deal with the Coronavirus and there will be doubtlessly unforeseen circumstances.  But we will continue to trust our Lord in them.

As believers, we may adopt the language of Psalm 31:5 as our own, “Into your hand I commit my spirit.”  We can do this confidently because we trust in God’s power and control over our lives and all our circumstances.  We can face 2021 with unshakeable confidence in the Almighty One Who is able to sustain us, guide us, protect us, and provide for us.  He is able to steady our feet in an unsteady world.

This we exult as the Apostle Paul did when he penned these words of doxology: “Now unto Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20).