A phrase President Obama liked to use a lot in his speeches was "They will be on the wrong side of history". It was meant as a way of saying, "We can't do anything about their actions now, but history will not be kind to them and will right the wrong later". When Russia invaded the Ukraine, Obama said this of them as a way trying to scold Vladimir Putin into rethinking his decision.
One has to wonder about this issue of being on the "right side of history". If I am an atheist and don't believe in a life after death, why should I care what the history books right about me? I don't exist anymore and I won't be able to care what they write about me anyway. Does Hitler care? Stalin? Mao? Do you think Putin will care when he is gone?
But if there is a heaven and hell, it's NOT the history books that I will be mostly concerned with when I am gone. It will be a different set of books God has that will be of much larger concern to me. In the previous case, the history books are essentially moot and powerless. In the later case, God's books have a lot to say about us.
In Revelation 20:12, the Apostle John writes in,
12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.... 15 Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.
God keeps 2 sets of books, much like businesses keep ledgers with credits and debits being tracked. On God's books it's much the same. One one side is the list of all our sins we have committed, and on the other is the sins paid for by God's own Son JESUS CHRIST! For those, who are baptized in Christ Jesus they are made alive in him and pass from death to life. Not in some future time, but RIGHT NOW! We have nothing to fear as we die. Our names are written not only in the Book of Life, but in God's own hands. 800 years before Christ, the Prophet Isaiah wrote,
“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the childshe has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands!
Our names are not written in "pencil" in the Book of Life, but are written in the blood Christ shed on the cross for us!
I have seen a trend that is occurring more and more often. That trend is putting "memorials" on the backside of your vehicle to commemorate the death of a loved one. The most common one is the decorating of the back windshield with white-lettering and pictures of doves, hearts, angels etc and including the birth and death dates of the person. This, in affect, turns the vehicle into a mobile-grave-marker. I can understand why someone would do that. I know that people don't visit cemeteries and therefore grave-markers go unnoticed by most of us. It's hard to accept that many people die without being "remembered" by most of us. We want their lives to have meaning and consequence. We yearn for their lives to have an impact on this earth.
Jesus was asked by one of the thieves on the cross next to him,
"Lord! Remember me when you enter your kingdom!"
That's all.... just "remember me". And to his astonishment Jesus goes far beyond his request to be remembered. He promises the man complete forgiveness of his sins and that he will enter God's kingdom that very day when he replies,
“Truly I tell you, todayyouwill bewithmeinparadise.”--Luke 23:43
The man who had no hope at all when he was lifted on his cross next to Jesus now had the best hope anyone could ever have. I think the Pharisees down below must have been scratching their heads as they heard Jesus during his agony on the cross minister to this lost soul. Maybe they would recall Jesus own words earlier when he said to those who made exception to Jesus eating and drinking with "sinners",
"I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” --Luke 5:32
How much does this thief know of Jesus? Answer: hardly anything at all. Most of what he has learned came from the mockers down below. They yelled "insults" at him. Taunted him with his "claims" and probably quoted some of Jesus own teachings back at him. That's all it takes for the Holy Spirit to work. Even when the world mocks Jesus it inadvertently professes about him and performs an unintended spreading of the gospel. Yet despite the small amount of what he has learned in the few hours he has been placed next to Jesus he has come to accept him as "Lord". Simply amazing!
When Jesus sent out his disciples and they came back bragging about what they saw happen. They bragged to each other about how they saw the sick being healed and demons being pushed out of people. Jesus admonishes them and says,
However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are writteninheaven. -- Luke 10:20
We, also, get caught up in our own earthly "demon kicking" and need Jesus to remind us what really matters in the end. He reminds us that being "remembered in heaven" is so much more valuable than being remembered here on earth. I had a conversation with a co-worker on how it's so silly some of the verbal fights we see going on at our company over which vendor we should use for our work. I said to him, "There's not going to be a bronze statue of me standing outside our building in Folsom with me standing next to an emulator and pointing out into the distance! When I leave I will be forgotten along with all I have worked on too!".
As we make our way through this world we daily need Jesus gentle reminder of what is really important: "He will not forget us when we die but will take us to heaven to be with him forever"
The movie "Inception" is about a world where people figure out how to get into other people's dreams and dive down deep into their sub-conscience and plant an "idea" into them that will propel them to do what they want them to do.
The concept that an "idea" is very powerful tool is absolutely correct. Ideas have changed societies, built H-bombs and created things like the Holocaust. But at the the individual level they also have effects as well. Our minds are open fields for good and for bad ideas. Ideas that sometimes seem to come out of nowhere.
Let me illustrate. When I was trying to decide whether to be an engineer or a pastor I consulted lots of different people to help me see which way I should go. All gave me their opinions but nothing seemed to point the way. Then I saw the movies "Chariots of Fire" where the main character, Eric Little. is talking to his sister about his conflict between running in the Olympics and being a missionary. He said, "I know God has made me for a purpose! But he also made me FAST! When I run I feel his PLEASURE!". It was at that moment I decided to be an engineer. Because I too felt God's pleasure as I studied my math and science. Those were abilities he gave me to use. A thought set my course in life.
Another illustration I like to use is how I met my wife. I had just moved out to New England area for my first job and I sat in Mt Calvary Lutheran church for the first time (just 2 weeks after moving out to the area) and I saw this beautiful girl with the most gorgeous head of strawberry blonde hair and I heard a voice say (in my brain) , "You are going to marry that girl someday!". It was such a strong thought I looked around to see if someone was playing a joke on me. 3 years later we were married. A thought brought me my wife.
Thoughts can be Powerful!
But thoughts can also be destructive. Look in Genesis and see Eve talking with Satan about the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. He plants thought in her that says "Did God really say that?" You see Eve was not around when God told Adam to not eat of the tree. She was not created yet. She had to trust that Adam was telling the truth. Satan's question to her, "Did God really say 'You will die'?" is not a question directed about God, but instead what Adam told Eve that God had told him. Doubt can be a seed that grows and spreads like a weed in a persons life.
- Does he/she love me?
- Did they do that on purpose?
- Can I trust him/her?
These doubts about other people in our lives ruin relationships and drive us away from others. Marriages are destroyed. Friendships are lost. Churches are torn apart.
Maybe the most destructive thought to a believer is simply, "Am I saved?". Doubt about ones salvation begins as one doubts their own internal goodness. We may at some level, even though we know we are sinners, still harbor some idea that we have some internal quality that God likes and wants to preserve, but when that quality is removed (or we don't see it as enough in God's eyes to be worth much) we begin to doubt our value in God's eyes. Even though we know God's love is for all.... somehow we feel we fall through 'the cracks' of God's love into hell itself. It's for THEM....but not for ME. We may feel that God can forgive the sins of our youth...but not our adulthood. We may feel he can forgive the sins of ignorance....but not the sins of willfulness. King David says to the prophet Nathan after he is confronted with his adultery and murder, "I AM UNDONE!". He was basically saying: "I am naked as Adam before God!" Nathan proclaims to David the good and bad news that he is forgiven but that his sin (that everyone knew about) will have ramifications and will cause a division in his own household. This will later hold true as his son Absollem will take advice from other people that HE should be the King of Israel since his father has committed 2 horrible sins against God).
Satan knows about our doubts of ourselves and our feelings of being unworthy and he plays on them all the time.
- IF God loved you he would have kept you from doing that!
- IF YOU loved God you would not have done that!
- NOW you have gone TOO FAR!
- This is who you REALLY are! Give up!
Satan knows that our limited minds have problems with "infinity". We are finite and therefore God must be finite as well. If we have limited love ... God must have limited love as well. Paul tries to express how wrong this thinking is when he says in Ephesians,
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
We cannot fathom how infinite God's love is for us. Our doubts about ourselves are really doubts about what God has told us about himself and his relationship to us. He calls us "His children" yet we doubt our "belonging". He dies for us and yet we doubt his love for us. He raises from the dead and declares "Peace to you!" and we feel he is out to get us for our sins. He forgives the disciples for their abandonment and their disowning him and we doubt his forgiveness for our willful sins of abandonment and disowning.
So the real question to each of us know is simply this: Which thoughts are you going to entertain and listen to? God's spirit that tells us we are loved and accepted for who are are right now? Or the satanic thought that you are not "good enough" or that God has forgotten you.
