Tag: Hope

easter means it won’t always be this way

[4 minutes, 685 words, 2 minute video]

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away.

Revelation 21:4

My wife shared something beautiful with me some time ago that made me think of this passage. She said, “As time goes on, I’m able to feel less and less grief about Graham‘s passing. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still there, but less so as the years go by.”

I thought deeply about what she said and told her she helped me see something I’d given so little thought to. At the end of time, when Christ comes and makes all things new, the pain and heartache of our earthly years will be erased. While we will surely remember each other, we won’t remember our sorrows and sadnesses.

“Pain will be no more.” Every grief, all our tears, and the hard sting of pain will be wiped clean in that New Day.

The grace of Sandy’s lessened grief is a foretaste of the new heavens and new earth. Whatever you’re going through, Easter reminds us it’s not always going to be this way.

The resurrection means we can look forward with hope to the day our suffering will be gone. But it even means that we can look forward with hope to the day our suffering will be glorious.

On the Day of the Lord – the day that God makes everything right, the day that everything sad comes untrue – on that day the same thing will happen to your own hurts and sadness. You will find that the worst things that have ever happened to you will in the end only enhance your eternal delight. On that day, all of it will be turned inside out and you will know joy beyond the walls of the world. The joy of your glory will be that much greater for every scar you bear.

– Timothy Keller, Jesus The King

Joni Eareckson Tada attended a convention during which a speaker invited the people to kneel and pray. Everyone did except, of course, Joni.

“With everyone kneeling, I certainly stood out. And I couldn’t stop the tears.” Her emotional moment wasn’t out of self-pity; she was crying at the sight of hundreds of people on their knees before God. For Joni, it was a preview of heaven!

Sitting there, I was reminded that in heaven I will be free to jump up, dance, kick, and do aerobics. And…. sometime before the guests are called to the banquet table at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, the first thing I plan to do on resurrected legs is to drop on grateful, glorified knees. I will quietly kneel at the feet of Jesus.

I was blessed to be interviewed for the video at the top of this post that was shown in this morning’s Easter services. Full disclosure: I felt a bit awkward sitting there watching it with everybody else! Plus, it’s not easy to see yourself up there on the big screen. Why didn’t I sit up straighter? Gracious me, I thought I was losing more weight than that! Wow, I’ve really gotten old. Aside from all my wood-hay-and-stubble vanity, I’m very pleased with how it came out.

Those opening words were so important for me to share, and I’m delighted they made the cut. Every morning I wake up, I tell Jesus two things: it’s my honor to do this for You, and please allow me to suffer well — in a way that brings You all the glory.

I don’t love paralysis, but I love Jesus. One day my eyes “will see the King in His beauty, and I will see a vast land…I will no longer see the barbarians…but I will see Jerusalem, a peaceful pasture, a tent that does not wander…for the Majestic One, our Lord will be there…and none there will say I am sick.” (Isaiah 33:17-24, CSB)

I’ll be easy to spot; you’ll find me at the feet of Jesus.

Selah, beloved. A blessed Easter to you.

elon

[4 minutes, 674 words]

No, not that Elon. Today’s meditation is about an Elon of the tribe of Zebulon, who was listed as one of Israel’s judges. All we know about him is that he judged for ten years and where he was buried.

Elon, who was from Zebulun, judged Israel after Ibzan. He judged Israel ten years. And when he died, he was buried in Aijalon in the land of Zebulun.

Judges 12:11-12

Two verses. That’s it.

No dramatic battles. No miraculous exploits. No lengthy narrative. We may surmise that, being buried in a Levite town, Elon was also a priest. Other than that, his life didn’t move any needles that we can see. Nothing heroic is mentioned and yet Elon served a vital role in the history of Israel. And because there is no mention of scandal, we can assume he did his job with integrity.

The church is filled with these kind of leaders. They are everywhere. We don’t really know much about them because their testimonies don’t show up in books, nor are their names dropped in conversations. They never see the big stage, don’t pastor big churches, and their sermons never go viral. They are, for all intents and purposes, unknown in their respective fields.

But not to God. He knows their names, and what they do, and how hard they struggle.

My February read is Pastor, Jesus Is Enough by Jeremy Writebol. The author takes the reader through the seven letters of Revelation, reminding us that they are, first and foremost, addressed to the pastors of those churches. Most of the letters do not flatter the pastors or their congregations.

Sandwiched between the dead church (Sardis) and the lukewarm church (Laodicea) was the only church whose pastor received Jesus’s glowing commendation.1 He served the church in Philadelphia admirably, even bravely, standing strong in the face of overwhelming opposition.2

Jesus told him, I know you only have a little bit of power in the place where you are ministering. It feels like you’re all alone. You feel inadequate and useless. I assure you, you are not. I picked you. I put you where you are because I want to do God-things through you.

“Jesus doesn’t love the pastor of the big church more than the one who has a smaller, less-well-known ministry. He doesn’t delight more in the international traveler and evangelist who speaks to millions than he does the guy who speaks to the same fifty people every Sunday. His affections aren’t attuned more to the brightest young stars in evangelicalism than they are to the unknown and forgotten pastors who labor faithfully in insignificant places.”

—Jeremy Writebol, Pastor, Jesus Is Enough

Hey you. Yes, you. This post is for you even if you’re not a pastor. God sees you. He sees you in that lonely place where you are faithfully serving the King in spite of your weakness, opposition from others, anonymity, thanklessness, and lack of reward. Nobody else may see what you’re doing and what you’re up against, but your Heavenly Father does.

Most of us will live “Elon lives.” We won’t make headlines. We won’t move any needles. Our follower count will look tame by any metric. But we matter by God’s. So we’ll keep calm and carry on. We’ll simply show up — day after day, year after year — faithfully doing the work God has placed before us. We’ll raise children, serve our neighbors, love our families, and quietly point others to God. And that matters.

God doesn’t measure significance the way the world does. He doesn’t need your life to be spectacular to call it meaningful. He’s calling us to be faithful.

Elon judged Israel for ten years. That was enough. Your quiet faithfulness is enough too.

Prayer: Lord, help me to be faithful even when no one notices. Remind me that significance in Your kingdom isn’t measured by applause but by obedience. Give me the grace to serve You well in the ordinary, everyday moments of my life. Amen.

Selah, beloved.

  1. Revelation 3:8 ↩︎
  2. Revelation 3:9 ↩︎

go home

[5 minutes, 852 words]

A friend passed away unexpectedly this week. I say unexpectedly, but, in reality, Frank had been in a long battle with cancer. Cancer may think it won, but, in the end, Frank did. Frank is free from pain, from endless treatments, from uncertainty, from death.

I only heard about his passing last night as I sat with the men of my Thursday night Bible group. The announcement from our leader caught me like a sucker punch to the gut. Try as I might through worship, I couldn’t focus. Frank had often led our worship before he got sick, and kept with it through much of his sickness. Frank was eighty-two, hard of hearing, and often lost his place in the songs, but we could easily give him grace; Frank loved Jesus more than anything. He also loved the old hymns and many of us old Baptists appreciated his playlist.

Earlier yesterday, before I knew of Frank’s promotion, I was reading from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter nine.

“But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” — then he told the paralytic, “Get up, take your stretcher, and go home.”

So he got up and went home.

Matthew 9:6-7

“Get up, Frank. Go home.”

So he did.

My friend had been looking grayer and he’d been losing a lot of weight lately, but none of us thought it was time. My last conversation with Frank was to ask him to pray for me to be able to drink my coffee straight. He said he would. He asked me to pray for him to find some kind of special heat-resistant tape for a computer machine he was building. Mundane stuff. Coffee creamer and computers.

Then he was gone.

His last text to me was two weeks ago:

My dear Bro. Scott, trusting you are feeling better with a successful outcome. Will continue in prayer for complete healing. Your Bro. Frank

I’ve been sick myself lately, but nothing like Frank. I have a gall bladder that has to come out, kidney stones that need blasting, a fluid collection near my spine that needs draining and assessing, and osteomyelitis that needs treating. I only mention these things because Frank was really burdened for me.

I know. I’m thinking it too. A dying man, sad for his sick friend.

I confess that the original idea behind this post wasn’t about Frank; it was about me. More pointedly, how I heard that scripture yesterday morning. It actually happened to Frank, though.

“Get up, Frank. Time to go home.”

I still don’t know what time he departed this mortal coil, but I think it’s pretty cool to imagine it may have been around the time I was writing these words in my Bible notes:

1/28/26

This familiar scripture hits a new way this morning: it is my “Rise in the New Day, Scott, and go Home…because it’s time.”

Lord, I reach out my hands in faith to you.

Command it, dear Jesus. Just as you commanded the sickness to leave the centurion’s servant1 and commanded the wind and the waves to stop2. How I long to hear these words. May it be soon. In Jesus name.

Instead, my buddy Frank got the call. That’s okay; my day will come. I’ll just miss turning around and seeing a sweet-natured, smiling Frank in his Sunday spot two rows behind Sandy and me. I’m going to miss how he would light up about what supplements are helping him and all the scientific breakthroughs in cancer research he’d been reading about.

One last thing. Frank and I shared a lively discussion on a recent Sunday about how the joys of heaven will be “compounded” throughout eternity. Frank was intrigued. Any conversation about heaven interested him to no end.

“I’d like to know more about that idea, Scott,” he said. “This discussion fascinates me.”

He asked especially for scripture to help him understand it even more. I shared a few with him on the spot3 with the promise to add more that week.

I texted Frank back on the following Tuesday with a longer exposition, and included a quote I had read that put the entire idea of the exponential increase of heaven’s joys into a beautifully poetic image that Frank and I could see.

“Like waves incessantly crashing on the shore, one upon another, so the ages of eternity future will, in endless succession, echo the celebration of sinners saved by grace, all to the glory of God. There will not be in heaven a one-time momentary display of God’s goodness, but an everlasting, ever-increasing infusion and impartation of divine kindness that intensifies with every passing moment.” (Sam Storms)4

Well, Frank, is it so? Is it like that so far? I think Frank might say something like, “Oh, Scott, you have no idea.” One of these days I will get to, but for now I wait in hope for my time when the Master will say,

“Get up, Scott. Go home.”

And I will.

Selah, beloved.

  1. Matthew 8:13 ↩︎
  2. Matthew 8:26 ↩︎
  3. Eph. 2:7; 3:16-20; Rom. 11:33; 1 Peter 1:4 ↩︎
  4. www.desiringgod.org/messages/joys-eternal-increase-edwards-on-the-beauty-of-heaven ↩︎