TODAY is my BORN-AGAIN BIRTHDAY❗️
It was 48 years ago, in 1978, one month before my twelfth (biological) birthday (Oops❗️🫢 Accidentally outed my Christian and Biological ages on the internet again) that I handed my entire life over to Jesus in an act of sheer desperation and (as I've been testifying ever since) "stepped from Darkness into Light and from Death into Life".
"Oh, How I love to tell the story of Jesus my Lord!" 🎶🤗
How He scooped me up and miraculously prevented me from killing myself, which I had made up my mind to do on my way to school that day by hurling myself into oncoming rush hour traffic on Como Lake Ave in Coquitlam, British Columbia (which is a suburb of Vancouver).
I have Grown Up in Evange-Land (my name for the subculture of the Evangelical Church) and have witnessed MANY things in these passing decades. I am particularly dismayed to see evil and darkness èncroach upon it in an exponential way. I'm sure many of you feel the same way.
As we scroll Social Media, live out our daily lives and pick up our daily crosses we will discover there are many horrible things the CHRISTIAN Church is doing that is so heinous that we couldn't have even imagined it would get this widespread and this horrible.
But I urge you, instead of merely shaking your head at others, to consider our own roles in all of this. Each one of us are part of it too and adding our own sinful actions and attitudes to the Church as a collective.
In Romans, Chapter 12 we read a description of how the Christian church is ultimately meant to be lived out and SOMEDAY, upon Christ's return. we will exist and FLOURISH as His Body in that way.
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It's always good to look back (especially on our birthdays) to see how far we've come.
It's also good to appreciate the present moment and seek the good in it, but it is ultimately the FUTURE we should always keep our eyes on.
For those of us who actively follow Jesus, there are wonderful days of God's promises fulfilled (that are also way beyond even my BIGGEST imagining) still to come.
But the Bible describes some of it so that, in hard times, we can look up and see beyond them and "this present darkness" (Ephesians 6:12).
God will create a whole NEW Heavens and NEW Earth and construct a city for us to live in called the New Jerusalem.
And this isn't just some spiritual, la-dee-da, Pie in the Sky place (although we're told it floats), but God actually gives us the specs for it.
"The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates and its walls.
The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia in length, (about 1,400 Miles or 2,200 Km) and as wide and high as it is long.
The angel measured the wall using human measurement, and it was 144 cubits thick. (200 Feet or 65 Meters)"
But the best part of this is when John, (who this is being revealed to) records...
"I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.
The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp."
Rev. 21
So when you are feeling discouraged, frustrated, maybe even out and out angry by the things thrust daily in our faces, take a pause to (quantum) leap-frog past the tribulations here and now and "The 7-Year Tribulation" yet to happen and have a look at how things soon will be through God's lense of Revelation 21.
Future Days worth hoping and waiting for.
The Truth with Love Always Laura-Lee
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My Born Again Birthday Song.
