Randy Alcorn's Blog, page 36

Reflections on Wimbledon, Nanci, Heaven, and the Creator and Redeemer of Sports, Plus a Personal Thanks to Carlos Alcaraz

I wrote the following on Sunday and shared it on Facebook. It’s an expanded revision of an exchange I had that day, responding to a friend about the Wimbledon men’s final between Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz. (Before I go any further, my last blog article, Meeting the Resurrected You, really lays the biblical foundation for much of what I say in today’s blog. If you haven’t yet read it, I would encourage you to do so.)

My friend shared about his time at Wimbledon the weekend before with Stan Smith, who won Wimbledon in 1972, the year I graduated from high school and the first year I played on a tennis team Five years ago, Nanci and I met Stan when I spoke at a Bible translation conference (IllumiNations). We had a great talk, in which I told him that when I played in college, I wore his white and green shoes!   (Stan Smith tennis shoes are the best-selling Adidas shoes of all time, and are still sold today.)

On Sunday we witnessed some of the most amazing shots and exchanges in tennis history, where Djokovic and Alcaraz kept hitting three or four winners in a row, with each shot appearing to end the point and yet somehow didn’t, so only the last one could count as a winner! It is probably in the top three finals I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of them! For example, Stan Smith over Nastase in 5, 1972, a month after Nanci and I graduated from high school. Six weeks after we were married in 1975, Nanci and I watched Arthur Ashe outwit with angles and finesse the far more powerful Jimmy Connors. We saw Borg take down McEnroe in 1980, Nadal over Federer 2008, watched Sampras and Agassi and so many others.

Nanci and I always got up early to watch Wimbledon together, as it’s a 6 a.m. start here on the Pacific coast. It was her second favorite sporting event after the Super Bowl. I cannot hear the word Wimbledon without immediately thinking of Nanci.

So naturally, I really missed Nanci on Sunday (what else is new?). But I believe that people in Heaven retain their identity and personality and also their interests in their loved ones and in what they and their loved ones care about on Earth. They are there with the Creator who made them in His image and gave them the capacity to play sports and love them. As redeemed people, they see through redeemed eyes all the goodness God built into His Creation, untainted by the Fall and the Curse.

Sports are not beneath the dignity of God or His image bearers living in His presence. Sports were not Satan’s idea; they were God’s, and He wired them and their goodness into our nature with our creative capacities. Despite the fact that they can be twisted, like everything else, they can and will also be redeemed, and even now in this life can be a picture of Him, and in our best moments sports can serve for His glory.

Hence, I don’t think it trivializes Heaven or dishonors God at all to think it’s possible Nanci DID watch Wimbledon. Of course, I fully realize there are innumerable things in the universe FAR more important than sports, just as there were and are countless things more important than sports when Nanci and the rest of Heaven’s inhabitants lived here in this fallen world. But God is the maker of all good things, small ones as well as large, and the large ones that shout God’s greatness and the wonders of His heavens and earth do not negate or obliterate the small ones that whisper the same.

Since God tells us we are to glorify God in whatever we do, in such mundane things as eating and drinking (1 Corinthians 10:31), can we not glorify God as we ride bikes, swim, run, play sports, and watch them? Could people who live in the presence of God on the New Earth enjoy nature, animals, books, music, and sports? I have every reason to believe that we can and will.

Did Novak Djokovic or Carlos Alcaraz know that what they did with their bodies and minds at Wimbledon brought glory to the God of the Bible, who made their bodies and minds, and gave them those phenomenal gifts they have honed? Do they realize they are made in the image of the God who created the universe itself and sent Jesus Christ to redeem all who will put their trust in Him? Do they know that one day He will redeem fallen and weak and deteriorating physical bodies and minds, and that He will renew the universe itself? Sadly, I doubt that they did know that  and did consciously give glory to Him, though I certainly hope someday they will.

And did most of the fans gathered at Wimbledon Center Court realize that the earth itself is a larger Center Court, where the redeemed of God and the angels are a great cloud of witnesses, themselves longing for and cheering for and who will one day witness and participate in the climax of the unfolding drama of redemption right on earth’s center court, where Jesus will return, and make all things right?

Twenty years ago, Nanci and I visited the Wimbledon Stadium and got the tour when I was speaking in London. It was and is a cherished memory, I looked at our photo together there again today, which is at the top of this post.

One afternoon when we were sixteen, Nanci brought out two of her family’s old wooden rackets (one was a Jack Kramer in a wooden press to keep it from warping, just like the one in the photo). We drove to Washington Park in Portland, and there she taught me how to play tennis. I fell in love with the game as I was falling in love with her. (Trust me, my love for her greatly exceeds my love for the game!) I expect Nanci and I will play tennis together in our resurrected bodies on the New Earth. (Maybe we’ll play mixed doubles with Stan Smith and Joni Eareckson Tada.)

The first tennis team I played on was at Sam Barlow High, when the school was brand new. Twenty-some years later I first coached Barlow tennis when our daughters, Karina and Angela, were on the team. Both were excellent players and qualified for the state tournament. Nanci and I watched a lot of tennis in those days, cheering for our daughters and their teammates.

After the girls graduated, I was asked to help coach boys’ tennis, which I did for a number of years. The last few years I’ve had the privilege of coaching my grandsons Jake and Ty Stump, third generation Barlow students, who live less than a mile away. (Both of them have also qualified for the state tournament.) Jake just graduated and after Ty does next spring, I will retire from coaching (for the second time).

Meanwhile, our grandson Matt Franklin, who was the star tennis player at Alta Loma High School in Rancho Cucamonga, California, also graduated. When we enjoyed a week of spring vacation together three months ago one of my great joys was going out several times as a foursome with my three tennis-playing grandsons, who are all very good players. I remember vividly a number of times taking Matt and Jake and Ty out to the Barlow courts when they were preschoolers and first and second graders. So proud of them and just as proud of Matt’s brothers Jack and David Franklin.

I will end full circle by coming back to the 2023 Wimbledon men’s finals, earlier today (as I was writing this on July 16). Over the years of coaching high school boys, I specialized in working with singles players. Some of them always pushed back whenever I would say, “Let’s work on DROPSHOTS and LOBS.” I would hear some of the guys groan and complain because those aren’t the exciting highlight reel shots, and all they wanted to do was hit groundstrokes, volleys and serves. They thought of drop shots and lobs as uncool “old man shots.” (I assured them they were my favorite shots even long ago when I was a young man!)

Now, if you didn’t see Wimbledon, don’t watch tennis and haven’t seen Alcaraz play, this will mean nothing to you, but if you have, you will totally get it (watch some of his highlights below).

I want to say, THANK YOU, CARLOS ALCARAZ, who will no doubt read this post and be moved to tears by it.  (Not.) Thank you, Carlos, because after watching you play no high school tennis player anywhere will EVER again minimize or make fun of the dropshot or the lob and say they are “not cool.”

Check out Alcaraz’s deadly drop shots at a different tournament a few months ago.

Check out his lobs here, it’s 10 minutes, but in two minutes you will get the drift.

Meet the Resurrected You

Resurrection—Christ’s and ours—is a cornerstone of the Christian faith. Yet how many of us ponder what our resurrected selves will be like? You might think Scripture doesn’t say much. In fact, it tells us a lot, and gives us solid reasons to deduce much more.

For instance, Paul wrote, “The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. . . . It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body” (1 Corinthians 15:42–44). The term “spiritual body” doesn’t mean an incorporeal body made of spirit—there is no such thing. Body means corporeal: flesh and bones. A spiritual body will still be a body. But it will be spiritual, under the holy control of a redeemed and righteous spirit.

God made Adam from the earth to live on it, not float on the air. He joined spirit and body to make us completely human. He did not design us to be disembodied spirits as Plato taught, yet sadly, many Christians believe just that. To be with Christ in the present Heaven is better by far than living on earth under the curse. But Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 15 that we will not be eternally complete until our resurrection.

Was Jesus Only a Ghost?

“Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him” (1 John 3:2). Christ’s post-resurrection actions offer us a preview of what resurrected people will do—including preparing and eating meals, conversing, and traveling. If Jesus had been a ghost, we would become ghosts. More importantly, if Jesus had only been a ghost, redemption wouldn’t have been accomplished.

The risen Jesus told His disciples,

“Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence. (Luke 24:39–43, NIV)

Jesus didn’t just say He wasn’t a ghost; He proved it. Likewise, He “will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Philippians 3:21). Whatever else a glorified body is, it is first and foremost a resurrected body.

In Acts 1:11, an angel explained, “This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way. . ." The resurrected Jesus who lived among them forty days before ascending is the same Jesus in soul and body who will return to raise His people’s bodies from the grave. Why didn’t Jesus immediately ascend to Heaven? Perhaps partly to show His design for resurrected people to live on a physical earth.

You Will Still Be You

Bible-believing Christians often ask me, “Will we become angels when we die?” Somewhere they have gotten the idea that whatever we may be after death, we won’t really be human. No wonder so few Christians look forward to Heaven. Humans are not drawn to the idea of becoming inhuman.

Jesus clearly taught that resurrection does not happen one at a time when we die (see John 5:28–29). Scripture portrays resurrection as a matter of continuity from our present into our future lives. The Westminster Confession says, “All the dead shall be raised up with the selfsame bodies, and none other . . . united again to their souls forever.” Selfsame and none other unequivocally mean we will still be us.

When I became a Christian in high school, my mother saw many changes, but she still recognized me. She said, “Good morning, Randy,” not “Who are you?” My dog never growled at me—he knew exactly who I was even though I was a new person in Jesus. Likewise, this same Randy will undergo another significant change at death, and yet another at the resurrection. But I will still be who I was and who I am—just a far better version.

In My Flesh, With My Eyes

It’s hard to imagine a clearer claim to our physical and mental continuity in the afterlife than Job’s: 

I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth.  And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. (Job 19:25–27, NIV)

Peter said, “Heaven must receive him [the risen Christ] until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets” (Acts 3:21). What could be a stronger statement about continuity than God promising He will “restore everything”? Restoration is about bringing back the original good, which requires getting rid of the bad. 

Adam and Eve were 100% human in body and spirit both before sin, and after. We will be humans after sin’s destruction—far better humans, but never non-humans. The fundamental difference between our present and future selves will be our deliverance from sin, death, disease, and the curse (Romans 8:21, 23). 

What Will Glorification Be Like?

The apostle John described the glorified Jesus as shining with an overwhelming power and brightness (Revelation 1:12–18). But just as Moses and Elijah were glorified in a secondary sense in the transfiguration, so God’s people will experience derivative glorification from Jesus: “Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever” (Daniel 12:1–3).

Our glorification will involve a dramatic and marvelous transformation. What prepares us to participate in God’s glory in our resurrection bodies? Our current sufferings (1 Peter 5:1–4; 2 Corinthians 4:17). We are called “heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Romans 8:17).

Joni Eareckson Tada says in Heaven: Your Real Home, “Somewhere in my broken, paralyzed body is the seed of what I shall become. . . . if there are mirrors in heaven (and why not?), the image I’ll see will be unmistakably ‘Joni,’ although a much better, brighter Joni.”

Jesus says of the New Earth, “Behold, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5). This means He will restore Creation to its former pre-curse glory, and likely give it greater beauty and wonder than the original. We, and the new world, will become far better and in that sense far different. But we will be the same people, without sin; and it will be the same world, without evil and suffering. All will be made glorious.

Imagining Life After Resurrection

Though our imaginations will naturally fall short of resurrection reality, I believe we should allow them to step through the doors Scripture opens. Since we know what bodies are and we know what the earth is, imagining new bodies and a New Earth without sin, death, and suffering isn’t impossible. That’s why Peter says, “We are looking forward to a new heavens and a new earth where righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13). If you don’t imagine it, you won’t long for it!

“Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous” (Psalm 139:14, NLT). How much more will we praise God for the wonders of our resurrection bodies and minds—free from sin and disease and dementia? Our resurrected senses may function at levels we’ve never known. On the New Earth, we’ll still be finite but no longer fallen, suggesting we’ll continually experience discovery. Will our eyes function as telescopes and microscopes and see new colors? Will our ears recognize voices from miles away?

We’re commanded, “Glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:20). What will we do for eternity? Glorify God in our bodies. Scripture tells us, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). Forever, we will eat, drink, and do all else to the glory of God. We will worship Jesus not only when we gaze upon Him and sing, but as we work, rest, explore, study, learn, and celebrate.

Revelation 22 shows us God’s plan for eternal Heaven is a redeemed earth free from the curse, inhabited by active, embodied people—wonderfully good news to all who imagine Heaven to be dull, boring, and unearthly. On the New Earth, “his servants will serve him” (Revelation 22:3). We will have things to do, places to go, people to see.

All We Were Meant to Be

In Heaven, civilization and dominion will be sanctified and glorified: “The holy people of the Most High will receive the kingdom and will possess it forever—yes, for ever and ever” (Daniel 7:18). I and all God’s people—together with my parents, dear friends, and my beloved wife Nanci, who went to Jesus in March 2022—will cultivate and develop the New Earth, and marvel at its wonders.

We will surely write books, perform music, create art, play, laugh, meet new friends, discover, invent, and travel on the New Earth. How do I know? We do these things now, not because we’re sinners, but because we’re humans, made in God’s image. Sin will cease; image-bearing will not. Above all, we’ll be joined to Christ, in a perfect marriage that present marriages, in their finest moments, prefigure (see Ephesians 5:21–33).

Are You Looking Forward to Resurrection Day?

Our destiny is to rule under the King on the New Earth, to His glory. You and I will become all our Father intends us to be. That process begins here and now and will bear full fruit in his eternal kingdom.

Together, we’ll creatively serve and worship Him with purified hearts, minds, and bodies, forever enjoying His vast and beautiful creation and sharing in His boundless happiness. We will delight endlessly in our triune God, and incredibly, He will delight in us!

Photo: Pexels

Nothing Is More Often Misdiagnosed Than Our Homesickness for Heaven

I believe that nothing is more often misdiagnosed than our homesickness for Heaven. We think that what we want is sex, drugs, alcohol, a new job, a raise, a doctorate, a spouse, a large-screen television, a new car, a cabin in the woods, a condo in Hawaii. What we really want is the person we were made for, Jesus, and the place we were made for, Heaven. Nothing less can satisfy us.

Mark Buchanan puts it well in his book Things Unseen:

Homesickness—this perpetual experience of missing something— usually gets misdiagnosed and so wrongly treated. . . . All our lives we take hold of the wrong thing, go to the wrong place, eat the wrong food. We drink too much, sleep too much, work too long, take too many vacations or too few—all in the faint hope that this will finally satisfy us and so silence the hunger within.

. . . Here is the surprise: God made us this way. He made us to yearn—to always be hungry for something we can’t get, to always be missing something we can’t find, to always be disappointed with what we receive, to always have an insatiable emptiness that no thing can fill and an untamable restlessness that no discovery can still. Yearning itself is healthy—a kind of compass inside us, pointing to True North.

It’s not the wanting that corrupts us. What corrupts us is the wanting that’s misplaced, set on the wrong thing. If we don’t understand that—if we don’t understand that God has set eternity in our hearts to make us heavenly-minded, we skew or subvert the yearning and scatter it in a thousand wrong directions.

But the cure for our yearning and our restlessness is not to keep getting more. . . . The cure is to yearn for the right thing, the Unseen Things.

. . . We are metaphysically handicapped. This is not so much a design flaw as a designed flaw, a glitch wired into the system, a planned obsolescence.

. . . This shaking, unslaked desire in me is a divining rod for streams of Living Water. . . . He put in me, in you, a homing device for heaven. We just won’t settle for anything less.

Browse more resources on the topic of Heaven, and see Randy’s related books, including Heaven and The Promise of the New Earth.

Photo by Rachel Claire

Should Our Joy Depend on Our Circumstances?

Note from Randy: I was reading, and immediately appreciating this article sentences before the author mentioned my book Happiness! I wanted to share it because Pastor Steve Bateman gives an important correction to the modern sentiment that being happy due to positive circumstances, including the welfare of loved ones, is somehow unspiritual. True, circumstances change, and our happiness should be grounded on Christ, who doesn’t change, but that doesn’t make it inappropriate to rejoice in favorable immediate circumstances.

Instead of saying, “My circumstances don’t matter; they’re not the source of my joy,” we’d be better off saying: “God uses my best circumstances to encourage me, and He can use my worst circumstances to enrich me. He will never leave me, and He has promised me eternal life with Him on a New Earth in a resurrected universe. One day He’ll welcome me into His never-ending happiness.”

As Steve reminds us, our immediate circumstances do matter. But in the scope of eternity, they’re not the main source of our joy because of our ultimate circumstances in Christ, which can never be taken away from us.

My Joy Depends on My Circumstances

By Steve Bateman

When I was a young pastor, a church elder detected my discouragement one day and gently said, “It will look better in the morning.” This simple advice has helped me countless times since. Often after I’ve experienced a good night’s sleep and a brisk run, God has felt nearer, my problems smaller, the solutions clearer, and my future brighter.

By changing my circumstances, I increased my joy.

At this point, many evangelicals will rush to correct me: “No. You increased your happiness, not your joy. Happiness depends on circumstances; joy does not. The world experiences happiness, but only Christians experience joy.”

This popular distinction between happiness and joy hasn’t always existed in the church. Randy Alcorn makes a convincing case that the two biblical terms are interchangeable, and he traces the artificial distinction at least back to Oswald Chambers in the mid-20th century. If Alcorn is right (I think he is), then either joy and happiness both depend on circumstances or both don’t. What’s true of one will be true of the other.

2 Kinds of Circumstances

“Circumstance” literally means “to stand around.” Imagine yourself at the center of a circle, and certain objective facts stand around the circumference. Four facts surround you: you got a good night’s sleep, you’ve had a strong cup of coffee, your daughter just made the dean’s list, and your boss just gave you a raise. The normal response to these objective facts is genuine joy. You’ll feel happy—whether you’re a Christian or not.

Now imagine the circumstantial facts are these: your allergies kept you up all night, you spilled your coffee while driving, your daughter is failing a class, and your boss just fired you. The normal response to these objective facts is genuine sorrow. You’ll feel sad—whether you’re a Christian or not.

Believers share these kinds of circumstances with unbelievers. Because of common guilt, children of God aren’t immune from the sorrow produced by the fall; because of common grace, children of wrath aren’t deprived of the joy preserved in the imago Dei. Unbelievers experience genuine joy as they receive the Creator’s good gifts, even if they don’t acknowledge him who satisfies their “hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:17).

Beyond the facts of this immediate circle, there’s another circle with different circumstances—ultimate ones. These are the attributes, acts, and promises of God. For the unbeliever, such ultimate circumstances are bad news: God’s omniscience means every secret sin is fully known; his holiness ensures judgment is inevitable; his omnipresence renders judgment inescapable. These objective facts create a terrifying ring of circumstances for the unbeliever.

How does the unbeliever emotionally cope with these traumatic circumstances? By worshiping creation rather than the Creator and pursuing happiness in the gifts, not the Giver. Through spiritual blindness and willful denial, he cannot see beyond his immediate circumstances. Sure, replacing the living God with lifeless idols may bring joy for a season—yet with diminishing returns. His idols eventually fail him.

For the believer, the ultimate circumstances are happy facts. God’s omniscience means he knows our needs; his omnipotence ensures he can meet them; his compassion moves him to care about them; his providence confirms that every unmet need has a loving (even if hidden) purpose. Facts like the immutability of God, the substitutionary atonement and triumphant resurrection of Christ, justification by faith alone, and the promise of eternal life are firmly and forever standing their ground in a circle around me. My joy is completely dependent on these ultimate circumstances.

As Milton Vincent put it, “The gospel is one great permanent circumstance in which I live and move; and every hardship in my life is allowed by God only because it serves his gospel purposes in me.”

God of Hope

To be sure, we can often find joy in the happy facts of our immediate circumstances, since they’re kindly ordered by God. He “richly provides us with everything to enjoy” (1 Tim. 6:17): food and drink, family and friends, houses and health, Bibles and bikes, music and sports. The believer is free to have as much fun as legally possible while cheerfully obeying the laws of God and promoting the joy of others. While unbelievers hope for happiness from the world, believers hope for happiness in the world as they enjoy God’s good gifts with grateful hearts.

The missionary David Brainerd acknowledged our “absolute dependence” on God for “every crumb of happiness” we enjoy. Acknowledge this dependence and find guilt-free happiness in deep sleep, vigorous exercise, good food, close friends, public worship, meaningful work, and robust coffee—coram Deo. When we know the Lord has done great things for us, our mouth will be “filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy” (Ps. 126:2).

But when our joy is threatened by painful circumstances—when we’re shocked by sudden loss, paralyzed by gut-wrenching grief, or weakened by chronic disease—we fall back on hope. Hope is the fact-based conviction that no matter how bad things are now, they’ll get better.

Jesus prayed in Gethsemane with no outward evidence of joy. A bitter cup sat in his immediate circumstances. Why pursue this torturous path? For “the joy that was set before him” (Heb. 12:2). No matter how bad his immediate circumstances were, he knew they’d improve. For also standing beside the bleeding Son was the ultimate circumstance of an omnipotently kind Father.

As others have observed, for the unbeliever who doesn’t repent, this world’s fleeting joy is the closest he’ll get to heaven. For the believer, this world’s momentary sorrow is the closest he’ll get to hell. This is why Paul can rejoice in prison, knowing it has actually “served to advance the gospel” (Phil. 1:12). Immediate circumstance: Caesar’s prison. Ultimate circumstance: God’s purposes.

Again, Paul can say to Christians weeping over fresh graves that their grief differs from the grief of those who “have no hope” (1 Thess. 4:13). Immediate circumstance: the believer is dead. Ultimate circumstance: the believer will be raised.

Dynamic Partnership

Joy and hope are faithful friends. “Two are better than one,” and when our joy stumbles under the load of immediate circumstances, hope is there to “lift up his fellow” (Eccl. 4:9–10). Hope and joy cooperate for our endurance. Hope sustains us until we can feel joy again.

On the last day, the ultimate circumstances will swallow up our immediate circumstances, and every tear will be wiped away. Until then, by God’s grace, I’ll pursue joy by changing every circumstance biblical wisdom allows me to change. I’ll accept every sad circumstance I’m unable to change as the providence of the all-wise God. And I’ll remember ancient advice: “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning” (Ps. 30:5).

This article originally appeared on The Gospel Coalition, and is used with the author’s permission.

Photo by Alex Radelich on Unsplash

Tell Yourself These Biblical Truths about Suffering

In my book If God Is God, I write about how telling ourselves these truths that God has revealed in His Word about suffering can help us deal with it:

Suffering is limited. It could be far worse.

God sets a limit on evil and suffering in your life. In Job’s life, Satan could do only so much for so long. God determined the limits. And since life continues after death, your suffering can last only the tiniest fraction of your true eternal lifetime. Rest in the knowledge that everything that comes into your life—yes, even evil and suffering—is Father-filtered.

Here and now, God offers you the comfort of His presence. He promises in Hebrews 13:5, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” This unusual Greek sentence contains five negatives. Kenneth Wuest translates it, “I will not, I will not cease to sustain and uphold you. I will not, I will not, I will not let you down.”

Suffering is temporary. It could last far longer.

If you are God’s child, then your suffering cannot outlast your lifetime. Knowing that suffering will one day end gives us strength to endure this day. Though we don’t know exactly when, we do know for sure that either by our deaths or by Christ’s return, our suffering will end. From before the beginning, God drew the line in eternity’s sand to say for His children, “This much and no more, then endless joy.”

In 2 Corinthians 4:17–18 Paul speaks of relative weights. He calls our present evils and sufferings “light and momentary.” When we face a lengthy period of great adversity, though it hardly seems momentary, in fact it is. In eternity, people in God’s presence will fully agree with Paul that their earthly sufferings were unworthy to be compared with eternal glory.

Suffering can produce some desirable good. It can make us better people, and it can reveal God’s character in ways that bring Him glory and bring us good.

As a young Christian I believed that going to Heaven instead of Hell was all that mattered. But as I read the Bible, I saw that to be called according to God’s purpose is to be conformed to the character of Christ. God’s purpose for our suffering is Christlikeness. That is our highest calling. If God answered all our prayers to be delivered from evil and suffering, then He would be delivering us from Christlikeness. But Christlikeness is something to long for, not to be delivered from.

Whether suffering brings us to Christlikeness depends, to some degree, upon our willingness to submit to God and trust Him and draw our strength from Him. Suffering will come whether we allow it to make us Christlike or not—but if we don’t our suffering is wasted.

God can see all the ultimate results of suffering; we can see only some. When we see more, in His presence, we will forever praise Him for it. He calls upon us to trust Him and begin that praise now.

Suffering and weeping are real and profound, but for God’s children, they are temporary. Eternal joy is on its way.

God promises that the eternal ending will break forth in such glorious happiness that all present suffering will pale in comparison. All who know Jesus will have a happy ending.

We just haven’t seen it yet.

This article was adapted from Randy’s book If God Is Good. Also see the devotional 90 Days of God’s Goodness, book The Goodness of God, and booklet If God Is Good, Why Do We Hurt?, which deals with the question and shares the gospel so that both unbelievers and believers can benefit.

Photo by Ioana Ye on Unsplash

The New Fight for Life: An Important New Book from Benjamin Watson

For decades I have spent long and fruitful hours dialoguing with prolife advocates as well as proponents of racial justice. Both causes are close to God’s heart, and I have often regretted that those who see clearly one of these causes are often blind to the other. I don’t know anyone more insightful and articulate on these issues than my friends Ben and Kirsten Watson, who beautifully model a kind and thoughtful commitment to both prolife justice and racial justice. For fifteen years Ben was one of the most highly respected players in the National Football League, and now that he’s retired, he and Kirsten continue to have a ministry to many inside and outside the NFL.

There are things in Ben’s new book, The New Fight for Life: Roe, Race, and a Pro-Life Commitment to Justice, that may offend some political liberals and things that may offend some political conservatives. Readers who want to learn and grow should suspend judgment and prayerfully and non-defensively listen. If you do you may find you agree with more than you expected to, and that you can disagree with parts while being enriched by the whole.

In the introduction, Ben writes,

…let’s jump right in and acknowledge the elephant in the room. What business does a retired football player have speaking into the pro-life discussion?

It’s all right. I get that question a lot, and while I realize many people consider this to be a women’s issue, there are several reasons that I, as a man, have joined the ranks of those speaking into it.

For one thing, there are currently seven children (and holding) in the Watson household, each one of whom has forty-six chromosomes, twenty-three of which they got from my wife, Kirsten, and twenty-three of which they got from me. So from a strictly biological standpoint, men have an equal share in the procreation of every child.

Also—while I am by no means saying this is right— historically speaking, when it comes to politics and the law, men have held the majority of the power. Case in point: there have been 115 Supreme Court justices in US history, and all but seven of them have been white men. Women didn’t even hold a seat on the Supreme Court until Sandra Day O’Connor was confirmed in 1981, and there was not a Black woman represented until 2022, when Ketanji Brown Jackson became the first Black female justice in the Court’s 232-year history. It was seven men who voted Roe v. Wade into law in 1973, and five men and one woman who voted to overturn it in 2022.

I’m not trying to quell the voice of a woman speaking out on her own behalf. It’s vital that women do advocate for themselves. But given that it’s still predominantly men making the decisions, it seems to me that the most effective way to even the playing field is for men with like-minded ideologies to advocate for equality and justice along with and on behalf of women.

In many ways and for many reasons, men have championed abortion on demand in this country. They—we—have led the campaign to legalize this practice, harming women along the way, framing the unnatural as choice and freedom while ultimately seeking to benefit our own interests and protect our own passivity. It was a man, Dr. Alan Guttmacher, who first introduced abortion to Planned Parenthood.

Too often, men have remained silent on topics that matter most, believing the common assertions that abortion is a women’s issue. I have even encountered men who claim abortion is a necessary good to protect against future suffering or to keep other social ills at bay.

But as a man, I take very seriously the words written in Proverbs 31. Most people are familiar with the description of the Proverbs 31 woman, but earlier in the chapter, the author (King Lemuel) describes what his mother taught him. I suppose you could say this is what it means to be a Proverbs 31 man:

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves;
ensure justice for those being crushed.
Yes, speak up for the poor and helpless,
and see that they get justice.
PROVERBS 31:8-9

Isaiah 1:17 says, “Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s case” (ESV). Over and over in Scripture, God challenges us to protect widows, foreigners, the young, and the vulnerable. In fact, the truth of the gospel, in its totality, challenges each one of us to humbly ask God to show us places where we can make a difference.

To that end, the issue of abortion is very much intertwined with others of equal importance to me, like poverty, racism, and the trafficking of children. The way I see it, these are all matters of justice.

Over the course of my career, Kirsten and I have been introduced to individuals and organizations on the front lines of some of the worst ongoing human rights violations in the world today. Through those partnerships, I’ve seen firsthand how poverty, inequality, fear, and desperation can push people into unthinkable choices.

I traveled to the Lebanon-Syria border in the spring of 2017 with a pastor-friend of mine to witness the impact of the war in Syria. Hundreds of thousands of refugees had fled the violence, leaving behind their homes and possessions. We met with Lebanese pastors who had opened their church doors to families fleeing violence and visited primary schools where children were trying to continue their education in an unfamiliar land. I remember seeing a student’s drawing taped on the wall, depicting him and his family running from tanks and bombs. Sitting on the floor in the primitive conditions of a tent settlement, I spoke to a father about his harrowing experience. His wife sat by his side as their children peered through the sheet that served as a door.

Recalling the dangerous journey to safety across the border, he said through our interpreter, “As a father, I just want my family to be safe. We go to sleep hoping we will wake up back home. But we don’t know if we will ever return.”

My heart and mind drifted thousands of miles away to my own family and how, like him, I would willingly endure extreme hardship to keep them safe. No matter the cause of suffering—war, sexual abuse, food poverty, or discrimination— human suffering should upset us, and even offend us.

So while a lot of people define pro-life as protecting the preborn, I believe being pro-life means caring about life, period, and recognizing that everyone has the right to flourish and be protected, regardless of age, ethnicity, gender, or socioeconomic standing.

To echo pro-life activist Cherilyn Holloway, being pro-life means that “we care about the life that is in the womb, but we also care about the man on the street. We also care about these children and where they’re getting their education and health care from and Grandma and Grandpa who are entering end-of-life care and that they’re treated with dignity and respect. . . . These are all whole-life issues for us.”

Simply put, every life bears the image of God, so every life has value. For me, being pro-life means advocating for every life—especially those who cannot advocate for themselves.

This is the kind of book that can lead us beyond shallow political slogans and stereotypes that fit on bumper stickers or Twitter but are out of place in intelligent and respectful dialogue. The Post-Roe era we’re in now is a time to ask God to open our hearts and minds to what matters to Him. I believe He has raised up Ben Watson to be a voice for two interwoven causes that should be simultaneously embraced. I highly recommend The New Fight for Life. (You can read a longer excerpt here.)

In this video, Ben shares more about why he wrote the book:

Photo by William Fortunato

Set Your Heart on What’s Important over What’s Urgent

This powerful video from Dad Tired reminds us to “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33):

 
 
 

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A post shared by DAD TIRED | Led by Jerrad Lopes (@dad.tired)

How easy it is to succumb to what Charles Hummel called the “tyranny of the urgent.” It may appear urgent to take a phone call or finish a work project when it’s bedtime for my kids. But while I could talk to that person later or finish work later, my opportunity to read to my child and play with them tonight is a window that will soon close, and once closed, is forever gone. (I may or may not have more nights, but I will never again have this night.) Missed opportunities begin as exceptions, then become a habit, and the next thing we know, our children are gone and we wonder what we could have built into their lives if only we’d realized how important and fleeting our time with them was.

Parent or not, everyone’s day is filled with the urgent—work, appointments, repairs, phone calls, shopping, news feeds. But even if we don’t invest in time with the Lord or read to our children or call our parents or mentor a young person, the minutes and hours still pass. These opportunities are not emergencies. In neglecting them we don’t neglect the urgent. We neglect something vitally, eternally important.

My advice to parents is this: don’t let the time slip by. Don’t leave full of regrets. At the end of their lives, nobody says they wish they’d spent more time at the office or watching TV or looking at their phone. But often they say they wish they’d been there for their kids. There is no substitute for time spent with your children and grandchildren, and no substitute for your undivided attention. And there is no substitute for seeking God’s wisdom to discern the difference between urgent and important matters.

Set your heart not merely on what’s seen, but what matters for eternity. Consider 2 Corinthians 4:18 and the example of Abraham and Moses in Hebrews 11. Invest in what will last, and center your life around God, His Place, His Word, His people, and those eternal souls who desperately long for His person and His place. Do this, and your days here will make a profound difference for eternity.

At the end of our lives, when we look back, most of what seemed urgent will be long forgotten. What we will thank God for—or regret—is how we handled what was truly important.

For more on seeking what's eternal, see Randy's devotional Seeing the Unseen . 

Photo by Josh Willink

May We Be Overwhelmed by the Goodness of God

A dear friend sent me this video. If you don’t have time to read the article below, just listen to the wonderful song on YouTube, which this little boy makes come alive.

What a powerful reminder that God is the Greatest Good and the source of all lesser goods: “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father” (James 1:17). Wayne Grudem says in Systematic Theology, “The goodness of God means that God is the final standard of good, and that all that God is and does is worthy of approval.”

Scripture contains many direct affirmations of God’s goodness, such as:

Good and upright is the LORD;
therefore he instructs sinners in his ways. (Psalm 25:8)

You are good, and what you do is good;
teach me your decrees. (Psalm 119:68)

Give thanks to the LORD Almighty,
for the LORD is good;
his love endures forever. (Jeremiah 33:11)

The LORD is good,
a refuge in times of trouble.
He cares for those who trust in him. (Nahum 1:7)

God extends His goodness to His people.

God’s goodness entails a number of His other attributes. Grudem also says in Systematic Theology, “God’s mercy is his goodness toward those in distress, his grace is his goodness toward those who deserve only punishment, and his patience is his goodness toward those who continue to sin over a period of time.”

God’s goodness is linked to His love: “Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever” (Psalm 23:6). His goodness also connects with His holiness: “We are filled with the good things of your house, of your holy temple” (Psalm 65:4). “How great is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you, which you bestow in the sight of men on those who take refuge in you” (Psalm 31:19). God has stored up His goodness for those who fear Him. That means in the future He plans to bestow upon us a storehouse full of goodness.

God manifests His goodness to all people.

God does not restrict His goodness to believers only. He is good to all His creatures: “The LORD is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made” (Psalm 145:9); “He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy” (Acts 14:17; see also Matthew 5:45).

God grants His goodness to humanity at large, manifested in both nature and culture, in such good things as animals, forests, rivers, music, art, and sports.

To say that God is good is not to say God will always appear to be good, or that when He is good we will always like Him for it.

Consider the anguished cry of Jeremiah: “He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness rather than light; indeed, he has turned his hand against me again and again, all day long. He has made my skin and my flesh grow old and has broken my bones. He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship” (Lamentations 3:2–5).

This outcry doesn’t appear to affirm God’s goodness, does it? Jeremiah sounds like Epicurus or David Hume. It seems remarkable that God would include in His inspired Word such human displays of confusion and frustration.

In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Susan asks Mr. Beaver if Aslan the Lion is safe. “Who said anything about safe?” Mr. Beaver answers. “’Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

This is sound theology—God can be good without being safe; He can be loving without bowing to our every wish or desire.

All arguments to the contrary, God is utterly good and worthy to receive our worship.

In Deserted by God, Sinclair Ferguson tells the story of English missionary Allen Gardiner. In January 1852, a search party found Gardiner’s lifeless body. He and his companions had shipwrecked on Tierra del Fuego. Their provisions had run out. They starved to death.

Gardiner, at one point, felt desperate for water; his pangs of thirst, he wrote, were “almost intolerable.” Far from home and loved ones, he died alone, isolated, weakened, and physically broken.

Isn’t this one of those stories told to raise the problem of evil and suffering? Indeed, if the story ended like this, we would find it tragic beyond description.

Despite the wretched conditions of his death, Gardiner wrote out Scripture passages, including Psalm 34:10: “The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing” (KJV). Near death, his handwriting feeble, Gardiner managed to write one final entry into his journal: “I am overwhelmed with a sense of the goodness of God.”

This article was adapted from Randy’s book If God Is Good. Also see the devotional 90 Days of God’s Goodness, book The Goodness of God, and booklet If God Is Good, Why Do We Hurt?, which deals with the question and shares the gospel so that both unbelievers and believers can benefit.

Photo by Jamie Pilgrim on Unsplash

Money Makes a Horrible Master and a Valuable Servant

Money is more than just metal disks or colored paper. It is a tool that simplifies trade. A farmer needs lumber more than beef, milk, and eggs. He has plenty of those. A lumberman needs beef, milk, and eggs more than his many stacks of boards. By trading their goods, both get what they want.

Money is a tool that can expedite such a trade and widen its circle to include others. Rather than trading two pigs for a plow and three sacks of grain, one person can give another the agreed-upon worth of the two pigs in the form of money. This saves time and energy. Who wants to carry around pigs and plows?

God encouraged the people of Israel to take advantage of money’s convenience. He told them that if their place of worship was too far from their home, they should exchange the tithes of their crops and livestock for silver, then convert it back to the goods of their choice once they arrived (Deuteronomy 14:24-26).

Money is one person’s promise of goods or services, granted in return for actual goods or services. In a sense, money is no more than a widely recognized IOU. Realizing its convenience, people consent to participate in an economic system in which money is the transferable object that makes it all possible. Of course, it’s only the widespread participation of others in this same system that gives meaning to money (spent any Confederate Currency lately?).

Because money has no inherent value, only ascribed value, money is not wealth. It merely symbolizes wealth. You can’t eat money and you can’t plow a field with it. You can use a one hundred dollar bill to light a cigar or wad up your gum, but that’s about it. Practically speaking, gold is much less valuable than some other metals. In and of itself, it’s little more than a pretty paperweight or doorstop. Gold, silver, platinum, coins, and currency are only worth something in a society where other people have agreed to attach a certain value to them. That they do so is proven by their willingness to give goods and services in exchange for them.

Money is nothing more than a pledge of assets, a means of payment, a medium of exchange. It is morally neutral.

The Two Faces of Money

Money has social and economic benefits that can be used for the betterment of people. As a plow can be used for honest labor and a sack of grain for feeding a family, so money, which simply represents their value, can be used for good.

Christian compassion can accomplish great good through the giving of grain, lumber, or money to alleviate suffering. Money can be used to feed, clothe, and provide shelter. It can fund the translation and printing of Bibles, provide for missionaries, or build houses of worship. In this sense, money may appear to be good. But it’s really the giver who is doing good. People may be moral or immoral, but things are morally neutral. Money is no more responsible for doing good than a computer is responsible for writing a book or a baseball bat for hitting a home run.

Money can be used to buy a slave or a whip to be used on a slave. Money can purchase sex, bribe a judge, buy cocaine, and fund terrorist acts. But in each case the evil resides in people, not money. As is the case with fire, so it is with money: the greater a thing’s potential for good when used rightly, the greater its potential for harm when used wrongly. And money has great potential.

If this were a morally neutral world, we would expect money to be used in a morally neutral way. But the world is not neutral—it is sinful and under a curse (Romans 8:20-22). In a sinful world, money becomes something other than a neutral means of barter. It becomes an instrument of power. In the hands of sinful people, power is perverted. In rejecting a God they don’t wish to serve, sinful people serve themselves with the god of money.

Although there’s nothing inherently wrong with money, there’s something desperately wrong with devotion to money.

Since money can be used for either good or evil, if those using it are more evil than good, it will most often be used for evil. The problem is human sinfulness—and so it will be until Christ returns and we live on the New Earth, where there will be no more curse and no more evil (Revelation 21:1-5).

Keep Money on a Short Leash

Jesus said to His disciples, “I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings” (Luke 16:9).

In this saying, Jesus tells us to do something good with “worldly wealth” (literally, “the mammon of unrighteousness”). It’s as if He’s saying, “Take this thing that is commonly used for evil and use it for good. Look at this worn currency; smell in it the foul purposes for which it was used. It may have once been stolen, perhaps even killed for. But now that it’s in your hands, use it wisely and well; use it for eternal purposes.”

Jesus clearly taught that we can and should use money for good purposes, both for this life and the next. Human hearts can be redeemed by Christ, and in the hands of the redeemed, money can serve redemptive purposes.

But lest we forget money’s dangers, Jesus also said, “No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money” (Luke 16:13).

Once we allow money to have lordship over our lives, it becomes Money with a capital M, a god that jealously dethrones all else. Money makes a terrible master, yet it makes a good servant to those who have the right master—God.

To regard money as evil, and therefore useless for purposes of righteousness, is foolish. To regard it as good and therefore overlook its potential for spiritual disaster is equally foolish.

The goal, then, is not that money be put to death, but that it be trained and handled with discipline, as a lion we are seeking to tame. Money may be temporarily under our control, but we must always regard it as a wild beast, with power to turn on us and others if we drop our guard.

Money must not call the shots. We may have plenty of money to buy a new car, but we must not take our direction from Money. If we serve God, we will buy the car only if we believe He wants us to—and we must base that belief on more than our preference.

Likewise, if we believe God is leading us to go to the mission field or to help a brother in need, we do not say, “There’s no money, so I can’t.” That also would be serving Money. If God is our master, all money is at His disposal and He promises to provide everything we need to do everything He’s called us to. We must concern ourselves not with what Money says, but with what God says. The need for money may be a factor in our decisions, but it is never the factor. God, not Money, is sovereign. Money—whether by its presence or absence—must never rule our lives.

Money is neither a disease nor a cure. It is a tool—nothing less and nothing more. We may use it well or poorly. Either way, how we use money is always of critical importance to our spiritual lives. It has a lasting impact on two worlds—this one and the next. Use it, Jesus said, but don’t serve it.

Adapted from Randy’s book  Money, Possessions, and Eternity .

Photo by Karolina Grabowska

Is There a Danger of Worshipping the Bible Instead of God?

Perhaps you’ve heard someone say something like, “My faith is in God, not the Bible” or “Be careful you’re not worshipping the Bible or making an idol out of it.” 

I agree that there is a danger of having our faith in the wrong object. And there have been some people who seemingly hold the Bible in higher esteem than they do Jesus. But seen properly, the Bible is not a competitor with God; on the contrary, it is our God-given means of knowing Him through His revealed truth.

God’s Word is the only trustworthy revelation of His character and will.

How can we know what God is really like? We can’t know without an authoritative revelation from God. Everything else is guesswork.

Anselm wrote, “Intelligent nature . . . finds its happiness, both now and forever, in the contemplation of God.” But we can only contemplate God with confidence if we have a source of information about God we can trust.

Scripture says this about its own nature:

Every scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. (2 Timothy 3:16, NET)
No prophecy of scripture ever comes about by the prophet’s own imagination, for no prophecy was ever borne of human impulse; rather, men carried along by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. (2 Peter 1:20-21, NET)

The people in Berea were commended for subjecting the apostle Paul’s words to God’s Word: “Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so” (Acts 17:11, NASB).

Everything the Bible says about God is true; everything anyone says about God that contradicts the Bible is false. Apart from a belief in the authority of God’s Word—as well as a growing knowledge of what it says—we’ll be vulnerable to deception. This is why one of the greatest needs in churches today is the consistent teaching of sound doctrine. Without it, and without people reading good books that reinforce a biblical worldview, God’s people will drift along, swept away by the current of popular opinion.

Faith is not inherently virtuous. Its value depends on the worth of its object. The Bible, understood in context and given precedent over our own instincts and preferences, is our dependable guide for faith and practice. Only by learning what Scripture says about God can we know what’s true about Him.

When we delight in God’s Word, we are delighting in Him.

Imagine this scenario, from an age before e-mail, social media, and FaceTime: a young woman is in love with a soldier serving overseas. Every day she checks her mailbox. Whenever a letter arrives, she opens it and eagerly reads and rereads every word.

Wouldn’t it be accurate to say she delights in her fiancé’s love letters? Would anyone correct her, “No, you should only take delight in him, not his letters”? That would be a meaningless distinction. Why? Because his love letters are an extension of him.

Yet I’ve heard people say, “Don’t take pleasure in the Bible; take pleasure in God.” But to study God’s words is to take pleasure in God, because His Word is an expression of His very being.

Anyone who finds happiness in God must find happiness in God’s words:

In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches. (Psalm 119:14)

I find my delight in your commandments, which I love. (Psalm 119:47)

Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day. (Psalm 119:97)

Notice such Scriptures demonstrate that to delight in and to meditate upon God’s Word is to delight in God Himself.

A woman self-consciously told one of our pastors that before going to sleep each night she reads her Bible, then hugs it as she falls asleep. “Is that weird?” she asked. While it may be unusual, it’s not weird. This woman has known suffering, and as she clings to His promises, she clings to God. Any father would be moved to hear that his daughter falls asleep with letters he wrote her held close to her. Surely God treasures such an act of childlike love.

The point of studying God’s Word is to know Him.

There is a danger of idolizing our own knowledge of the Bible rather than remembering the point is to know Him better. (If we fail to understand that, the problem is with us, not the Bible!) J. I. Packer, in the first chapter of his book Knowing God, says this:

To be preoccupied with getting theological knowledge as an end in itself, to approach Bible study with no higher a motive than a desire to know all the answers, is the direct route to a state of self-satisfied self-deception. We need to guard our hearts against such an attitude, and pray to be kept from it. …there can be no spiritual health without doctrinal knowledge; but it is equally true that there can be no spiritual health with it, if it is sought for the wrong purpose and valued by the wrong standard.

…Our aim in studying the Godhead must be to know God himself better. Our concern must be to enlarge our acquaintance, not simply with the doctrine of God’s attributes, but with the living God whose attributes they are. As he is the subject of our study, and our helper in it, so he must himself be the end of it.

May we see Bible study and doctrine as a basis for humble worship of our King and Savior, not for prideful posturing.

God’s words have the power to bring heart-happiness.

As a new believer in Christ, I couldn’t get enough of God’s Word. At night I sometimes fell asleep with my face on an open Bible. Other times I would listen to Scripture on cassette tapes (if you’re 35 or younger you may need to Google that!). As I drifted off to sleep, my last waking memories were of God’s words.

When Jeremiah said that God’s Word “became to me a joy and the delight of my heart” (Jeremiah 15:16), he was suggesting that Scripture has a cumulative effect that increases over time. Happily, by God’s grace, I can attest to this. As our dear sister Joni Eareckson Tada says:

If you want to increase your desire for God, then get to know Him in a deeper way. And there is no better way to know Him than through His Word. Get into God’s Word, and you will get a heart for Jesus. Get passionate about Scripture, and your passion for Him will increase. Feelings follow faith…and faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.

God promises that His Word “will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:11). We live in a time where the Bible is increasingly minimized. Let’s be committed to doing everything we can to uplift and honor God’s Word, as a means of knowing and loving Him.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash