As we come to the close of this most exciting year, many are entering the New Year with a feeling of dread and fear because of the things going on in the world. Others are entering it with great faith and hope. Faith and hope are going to win. The best year yet will be 2009.
Every Christian should be looking to the future with great faith and hope, even if we are looking into the “great tribulation.” It does not matter what comes upon the world, our King has prevailed, His kingdom is going to come, and His will is going to be done, right here on earth as it is in heaven. Bob Mumford once said, “You can read the end of the Book, and we win!” Consider this great promise in II Corinthians 2:14:
As we are told in this verse, the Lord always leads us in “His triumph.” The point is that what may be His triumph may not always be the outcome that we want. His greatest triumph was the cross. Can we embrace that? If we do, we will also experience the greatest victory over evil in our lives. The year 2008 was a breakthrough for many, and many more are going to experience this in 2009. The victory is sure, and if you are one with faith, you can start enjoying it long before it is established. Fearful people are always tormented, even when things are going well. Faithful people are always living in peace and joy, even when things are not going well. We get to choose which of these we will be.
In a recent message at our church, Jack Deere said that we often make the mistake of putting our faith in an outcome rather than in the Lord. This has our hearts set on a thing rather than on Him. If we trust in the Lord, we also need to trust Him that the outcome of a matter will be what best advances His cause, what will be “His triumph,” not just ours. In many cases, the greatest triumph would be the growth of our faith, which we are told in James is more valuable than gold. We only grow in faith when we need faith.
This is not to imply that we should not pray for specific outcomes, such as a specific healing or the overcoming of a specific problem. We should not put our trust in an outcome, but in the Lord. If we would do this, we would probably see outcomes that are even better than we expect.
Many are looking at the passing of this difficult year with great relief. It is good to look at the New Year as a new beginning and to have hope and expectation. We will also look at the passing of this age in the same way. We can be absolutely sure that the age to come will be wonderful beyond what we can even now perceive. Every day that passes we are closer to the return of the Lord and the coming of His kingdom. Even so, in the meantime the world will have to go through some tribulation. The Apostle Paul preached that it is through tribulations that we enter the kingdom, and the same will be true for the world. Even so, it does not matter what the world goes through—it does not have to impact us if we are abiding in the Lord and have built our life on the kingdom that cannot be shaken.
I once had a prophetic experience in which I was suddenly standing in what I knew to be the control room of some kind of warship. I was standing in front of a radar screen, and the Lord Himself was standing right next to me. On the screen, a small blip appeared straight ahead and was moving toward us. To avoid a collision, I ordered the ship to turn 90 degrees. The blip did not move on the screen; instead it kept coming closer. I then ordered the ship to turn in the other direction, with the same result that the blip on the screen kept coming closer. I then grabbed the screen to brace myself for the impact, but nothing happened except the blip disappeared. I asked the Lord what this was, and He said it was “the great tribulation.” He said that it was coming and was unavoidable, but it was just a small blip of the radar screen of all that He is doing, and if I stayed close to Him, I would not even feel it!
Of course, I had the benefit of having this very real experience that implanted something deep in my soul. Even so, whether you trust this vision that I had or not, the point is that you can trust in the Lord, and it is sound biblical truth that when we stay close to Him we are protected, regardless of what happens.
If you are wondering about all of the martyrs who stayed close to Him but were killed, that, too, was His protection! It does not matter whether we live or die, but what matters is that we remain faithful. Our whole lives are “training for reigning,” and laying down our lives for the sake of the gospel is one of the greatest acts of faith. If we believe in the resurrection and not just the doctrine of the resurrection, we should be excited about this, glorying that we have been considered worthy of suffering for His name sake, just as the apostles and most martyrs have been.
The best year yet will be 2009. That does not mean it will not be hard, but it will be the best thing for us because He promised us in Romans 8:28-30:
For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren;
and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.
One of the ways that we can begin to experience the victories more quickly is to understand that everything God allows to happen to us is for the purpose of conforming us to His Son. We can look at any trial and probably determine quickly which fruit of the Spirit He is trying to work out in us, and the most basic will always be love and faith. What would love have you to do? What would faith have you to do? That will almost always be the answer, and always remember—“Love never fails” (see I Corinthians 13: 8).
The greatest victory we could have in 2009 would be to grow in love, for God first, and then for one another. The second greatest victory would be to grow in faith. Neither of these has to come through trials, and probably would not if we were in faithful pursuit of them without having to have the trials to spur us on. However, trials that come are worth any price. On that judgment day, our success as human beings will be based more than anything on how much we loved God and one another. Be a success—grow in love. Fortify your success by growing in faith, too.
Next week we will continue with the three great fronts on which we can expect the body of Christ to advance this coming year. For now, enjoy the New Year, which is the beginning of the rest of your life. This is going to be the best year of your life!
12/22/2008 - 00:00
