October 4, 2013

From Jim McGuiggan.... Matthw 7.9-11 and "My mother's eyes"

Matthw 7.9-11 and "My mother's eyes"

 

 

Jesus said (John 12:48): "There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him in the last day."
[This announcement relates to those who heard Jesus' message and rejected it and has nothing to do with those in distant parts of the earth who didn't hear what he taught. Those non-hearers will come to judgment and if condemned it will not be for rejecting Jesus and his teaching since they never heard.]
The bad news
But those who heard the teaching and would have nothing to do with it or him need not guess what they'll meet in the judgment day. The person and the truth they defied while they were alive is what they will meet on that day and what is true of them would be true of us. It won't be a purer or more attractive or more truthful Jesus that we'll meet on that day—say a definitive no to him now and there's no reason to think that he will be more attractive at Judgment, even if we were given another chance to judge Jesus. The one we judge now is the one we will meet then and for those who impenitently and finally reject Jesus in this life that's bad news.
The good news
But for those who give their lives to him as he has already been revealed to us it is the best news. Part of the good news about the good news is that Jesus is the same, yesterday, today and forever. The lover of the oppressed and sinful, the defender of the helpless, the spokesman for the voiceless that we find throughout the Gospels—the One to whom the penitent turn in faith—that's the one they'll meet in that day. All the kindness, understanding, righteousness, truthfulness and faithfulness we saw in him while he was here—that's what we'll meet then! Since he said, "I will be with you always!" we can be sure that he'll be there when the final critical day arrives.
First and foremost our assurance of all this comes from the Spirit of God in the Holy Scriptures but a host of us have been privileged to come across people who illustrate the truth of what lies ahead for us in and through Jesus Christ. We're going to find that all that is lovely and splendid and honourable and true is eternal and that the beauty we saw in people was a pointer and a promise of the completed thing.
Goodness now is goodness then, honour now is honour then, and bravery and gallantry are forever the same. If we ask, "What will we find in the future?" the answer is that we'll find all the loveliness and righteousness that we've known in life made permanent and deeper and richer.
Henry Ward Beecher said he only came to grasp the love of God through the love of his mother. He knew, he said, that whatever trouble he might ever get into she would do anything, give anything, to redeem him. Knowing that helped him to rise to sense the depth of God's love. If God is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ not even Beecher's mother could out-love him.
Hudson Taylor, the famed missionary to China had a similar conviction. He said, "Before I had children of my own I used to think, God will not forget me; but when I became a father I learned something more—God cannot forget me."
Jesus looked around at a group of caring fathers and wanted to know, "If your child asked for a loaf would you give him a stone? If he asked for a fish would you give him a snake?" You know the response he got—that'd never happen. "Well, then," he said, "if you being evil know what it is to give good gifts to your children how much more is your heavenly Father like that?" He has no hesitation to take the best and truest that is in us and use it as an illustration of what we can expect from God.
We get a glimpse of the meaning of life as it's meant to be in the people who reflect the character of God and this is how God meant it to be. Sometimes we find it hard to climb to the heights where we can love and admire God and treasure what he has in mind (compare 1 John 4:20 and its implication) and that's where lovely people come to our aid. They're no substitute for God but there's no doubt that they make it easier for us to believe in God and love him (compare Isaiah 32:1-2). They make goodness warm as well as true; they make it look like what it is, something worth pursuing, and they make us believe that goodness is possible in a human life. Heaven won't be anything lovelier than that.  Don't be afraid of any of this for God isn't jealous when our love for a loved one always brings him to mind.
A songwriter of earlier years got it right when he wrote this (I've adapted it some for our purposes while leaving his point intact):
One bright and shining light
That taught me wrong from right
I found in my mother's eyes
Those wondrous tales she told
Of streets all paved with gold
I found in my mother's eyes.
Once I was lost in sorrow
A lonely soul
Now I walk the straight and narrow
To reach my goal
God's gift from up above
His pledge of lasting love
I found in my mother's eyes.   
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.

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