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What do you rely on?

Posted on by Bob Mathews

This is a question that popped into my head yesterday. With all the cold weather around the country, it should be no surprise that we got our share. The snow was nice to see and it was exciting for our young son to experience it for the first time. However, troubles come with snow most of the time. It is always a possibility that power may go out when the weather gets bad enough. Sure enough, we lost power sometime in the middle of the night. This is not something we haven’t dealt with before though. My wife and I have lost power before but this time seemed very different. It was the first time that we went without power with a baby in the house. It made me realize just how much we needed that electricity. If it was just us, we could have managed the cold. Our son has needs that only the electricity could supply. He doesn’t understand how to keep himself bundled up for warmth when the temperatures are freezing. Luckily, he will drink cold milk but it is definitely not his preference. All that to say, we rely on the ability to flip a switch and have power at our fingertips more than we ever realized.

It made me think though, do I rely on God and Jesus this much? Are they so important to our everyday lives that without them our days grow difficult or even unbearable? The truth is, we must rely on God and Jesus that much. Without them there would be nothing, no life, no you or me. “In the beginning God (Elohim) created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). You can continue reading on from there and see God go on to create all aspects of life including people. If you look at John 1:1 and following you would see that Jesus was there at the beginning with God as the Word that helped to create all things and continues to hold all things together. Unfortunately, after we were created, like bad weather causing problems, sin was brought into the world by going against what God commanded. This continues today whenever we choose to go against God. Because of our sin we are separated from the one who we need the most. Luckily for us, this is not the end of the story.

Insert God’s love here. If we look further into the gospel of John, we get to the famous passage John 3:16. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” This is not the only passage we should know, but it does give us an idea about why we need to rely on God and Jesus so much. God loves us enough to show us grace and mercy. Mercy because we deserve punishment that He is willing to forego. Grace because He is willing to also bless us with a gift that we don’t deserve and could never earn in spite of our sin. But the only way we could be blessed in either of these ways is because He was willing to allow His Son (Jesus) to die for our sins and it is our belief, trust, and obedience to Him that affords us the blessings of His sacrifice.

So, what do you rely on? Is it the amount of money in the bank? Is it the job that pays the money? Is it the car that gets you to the job? Is it your family that takes care of you? Is it the government that provides what you need? The truth, however sad it may seem to be, is that all of those thing like electricity could be gone. And they may never come back. Nothing on this earth will last forever or ultimately be reliable. God and His Son are the only truly reliable sources that you will ever find. They were here at the beginning and the will continue after the earth is no more. Don’t take them for granted like electricity. A day is coming when the light switch of life will no longer work. When that day comes it will be too late to start believing and relying on them. If you have a desire not to perish and have eternal life, than choose to rely on Jesus today. It is those that believe and follow Him that have blessings from God that are necessary for eternal life.

Where is your name?

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Did you ever carve your name or initials on a tree or write your name on a building or on a bridge? I have seen names on trains as they travel across the country, in bathrooms, just about any place where a person can write a name. Names are important and we like to see our names and hear our names. We don’t like, “hey you”. That is why I always look for a person’s badge to see if their name is there, so I can call them by their name and then later try to recall it. In the Old Testament, the temple was not really the dwelling place of Jehovah but the place where His name was.

When Jesus sent out the apostles he told them they could do a lot of different signs to confirm the word and when they returned they were rejoicing that they had been able to do those very things. It is interesting that Jesus told them, “don’t rejoice over these things, but rejoice because your name is written in heaven” (Luke 10:20). Paul spoke of certain people whose names were written in heaven (Phil. 4:1-4).

The most important thing that you can experience is having your name written by God in the book of life. But the only way that can happen is if we are following His word, being faithful in obeying His word. He said that He will tell some people in the judgment, “I have never known you” and that is after claim they knew him (Matthew 7:21-23). Paul was very confident about the fact that the Lord knows those that are His (2 Tim 2: 19).

Where is your name written, on a tree, on a building “in lights” or in the book of life in heaven? The only way you are going to enter into heaven is if your name is there in the book of life (Rev. 21:11-15). My prayer is that “when the roll is called up yonder, we will be there.”