Walking the path

(2-minute read)

Was God the Father just and fair with Jesus? I remember shortly after becoming a Christian, being thrilled with my salvation but feeling sorry for Jesus having to go through suffering and death. Where actually asking another to suffer and die might be wrong, Jesus was not another. In the temple courts, when Jesus said, “I and the Father are one,” the crowd wanted to stone him because he was saying he was God. When the Father decided to do something, he and Jesus did it together, each with their part.

Once I realized the consequences of Jesus and the Father being one, it opened the door to one of the most satisfying realizations. When ministers used to talk about what it would be like in heaven, it didn’t satisfy something within me, and I couldn’t help but feel like we had been made explicitly for something different.

Jesus told his disciples, “On that day, you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” We will be part of the team when God wants to do something in eternity. God knows me, my strengths and weaknesses, and how I can serve him. He has made a place for me. The thought of this satisfies something in the deepest part of my soul. I can’t imagine being able to do anything like what Jesus has done, but when God calls upon me, there is a place for me in what he will do.

The Lord has asked us to develop three things in this life: faith, hope, and love. The first and most important one of those is love. I’m not very good at this. My only hope is that God will give me a long life so that I might develop in that area more. When a baby is in the womb, if his legs don’t develop properly, he could be born with a limp. I don’t want to enter eternity with a love-limp.

I always thought I was better at hope, at least the beginnings of hope. However, hope requires patience to work properly, which is not my strong suit. I’m working on it.

To say I’ve been working on faith would be an oxymoron. Trusting the Lord in what he promised us and not working to produce them ourselves is difficult. It may be even more critical in eternity.

The most important things that we’ll ever do are in the life to come. Our accomplishments in eternity will overshadow our achievements in this life in the same way our accomplishments as adults overshadowed our achievements when we were a child. God has created a place for us to participate in what he is doing.