"being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;" -Phil 1:6
Somebody once said "hindsight can be 20/20 but foresight can be staring at you right in the face and you'll still miss it". I'm sure you can relate to this, because the future by definition hasn't happened yet and thus remains uncertain. But even though we can't know the future aside from what God has already revealed to us, I believe we can look to the future with the same confidence as if we already knew it. If you look closely at Philippians 1:6 Paul gives us the key to reassurance of the future. This verse can be divided into three parts; present, past, and future. Look at it like this..
“being confident of this very thing, (present) that He who has begun a good work in you (past) will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ” (future) In other words God isn't done with us yet, He is still working in us. Conforming us to the image of His Son Jesus. And the job will not be done till we leave this body and stand face to face with the Lord in our glorified bodies. In a broader and more practical sense though, when we look back at what God has already done in our lives we can have a positive and hopeful expectation for the future. Yes we can be confident of the future when we remind ourselves of our past in Christ. I look back at my life in the Lord and I can see the different things God had me do here and there, of course I didn't know it at the time it was happening but God was preparing me and my wife for greater use and responsibility in the ministry. The simple truth is confidence can be found now, this very day if we only trust in God's work and word. You can be reassured of what God is yet to do by looking back at what God has already done!
“being confident of this very thing, (present) that He who has begun a good work in you (past) will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ” (future) In other words God isn't done with us yet, He is still working in us. Conforming us to the image of His Son Jesus. And the job will not be done till we leave this body and stand face to face with the Lord in our glorified bodies. In a broader and more practical sense though, when we look back at what God has already done in our lives we can have a positive and hopeful expectation for the future. Yes we can be confident of the future when we remind ourselves of our past in Christ. I look back at my life in the Lord and I can see the different things God had me do here and there, of course I didn't know it at the time it was happening but God was preparing me and my wife for greater use and responsibility in the ministry. The simple truth is confidence can be found now, this very day if we only trust in God's work and word. You can be reassured of what God is yet to do by looking back at what God has already done!
- IS IT POSSIBLE TO BE IN THE WORD AND LOSE HOPE OF THE FUTURE? HOW DOES THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST GIVE US THIS HOPE?
- "I am not who need to be but I am not who I used to be" -?