God gave us tremendous men and women that stood on their faith when their conditions, circumstances, and situations didn’t look good. They could have given up and abandoned their faith in God. They could have given in to doubt and thought that He was taking too long to come to their aid. Instead they choose to see God bigger than their problems. They put their trust in Him, and He did not disappoint. Heavenly Father calls these men and women of faith a ‘great cloud of witnesses’, and in Hebrews 12:1, He encourages us to lay aside all the things that keep us boggled down in doubt and fear. He tells us that He’s given us a race to run, and we should run with everything within us, just like the great cloud of witnesses. We should run our race with all we’ve got, because God has promised the victory and prize at the finish line. Because of what Jesus Christ accomplished, victory is forever ours if we stay the course and don’t give up.
Hebrews 12:2(NLT) says, “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Jesus Christ is our example. He is exactly what God wants us to be, and God tells us in Romans 8:29 that Jesus Christ is the firstborn of many brothers and sisters. He’s our Big Brother. Jesus tells us in John 14:6 that he is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through him. Jesus Christ is Lord! He is the way to increase our faith, and following his example is the way to tighten and strengthen our relationship with God. Our Lord and Master showed us how life was designed by God to be lived, and we are commanded by God to be imitators of Christ. Heavenly Father would not tell us to do things that we are incapable of getting done. Through His Holy Spirit that dwells within every born-again believer, we have been empowered and equipped to live through Jesus Christ in a powerful way!
Many Christians are not living powerfully through God’s Spirit, and they do not believe they can. They feel like the devil’s punching bag. They feel defeated and abandoned by everyone, including God. In our hearts, we know that Heavenly Father would not abandon us, because He declares in Hebrews 13:5 that He will never leave or forsake us. Again, we know this in our hearts, but our minds can really do a trick on us. As wise and spiritually mature believers, we must not be fooled by the devil’s tricks, because he is using plots of deception to take over our minds and highjack our thoughts. Confusing us, causing us to doubt God, and keeping us stuck in darkness are just a few of his dastardly plots to knock us out of the race.
Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is the author and finisher of our race. He showed us how to run it with endurance and stamina, and in Hebrews 12:2, he unveiled the strategy. He endured the most humiliating and brutal death that anyone can imagine. His suffering cannot be calculated, and no other human being can endure what he suffered on the cross. How did he do it? This verse tells us that he focused his mind on the victory that laid ahead. He envisioned all his brothers and sisters that would be set free because of his death on the cross. While he was in unimaginable agony in every way as he hung on that cross, the joy of setting us free was what he focused on.
God tells us in Revelation 22:13(KJV), “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.” Our Heavenly Father has all the knowledge that exists and will ever exist throughout eternity. He knows the past, present, and the future. There is nothing that escapes Him. God has planned eternity, and we know that eternity is a very, very, very long time! It never ends, and our Heavenly Father has seen it because He is the Beginning, and He is the End. Everything that happens is according to His plan. Romans 11:36(NLT) declares, “For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory. All glory to him forever! Amen.” 1Timothy 1:17(NLT) proclaims, “All honor and glory to God forever and ever! He is the eternal King, the unseen one who never dies; he alone is God. Amen.” And 2Timothy 1:9(NLT) affirms God’s love, power, and perfection by telling us, “For God saved us and called us to live a holy life. He did this, not because we deserved it, but because that was hisplan from before the beginning of time—to show us his grace through Christ Jesus.”
When you and I start anything we attempt to do, think, and say from the perspective of God’s brilliance and omnipotence, we add to the foundation that Christ began. We start from a place of truth when our brain cells are processing the goodness and grace of God that has allowed our existence. Ephesians 2:10(NLT) declares, “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” Our lives are not random. God planned for us! He planned to have us be a part of His family by the sacrifice of His Son. He planned the earth as our habitation, and He planned our individual purposes to fit within His plan for the entire universe.
Yes, God has a purpose for our lives! Heavenly Father tells us in 1John 4:6 that we belong to Him. He’s our Creator, and there isn’t anything about us that He doesn’t know. He knows about our mistakes and the weaknesses that we have. His grace extends each of us the opportunity to repent and to be corrected by Him during our earth experience, so that while we’re here, we can mature spiritually and go higher in Christ.
The Bible is a forward-looking truth for God’s forward-looking people. He has not kept His plans for the future a secret. 1Corinthians 6:3(NLT) tells us, “Don’t you realize that we will judge angels? So you should surely be able to resolve ordinary disputes in this life.” God is the only Righteous Judge, and when He passes judgment, He will deliver it through His sons and daughters. This will happen in the future, when our Lord and Savior returns. 1Corinthians 2:9 proclaims that no eye has seen, ear heard, or mind imagined what God has prepared for those that love Him. This earth experience is a drop in the bucket. It’s grooming ground, the place where God is preparing us for what He has in store for the future.
We can’t go back to the past. God has told us about the future so that like Christ, we will not be distracted and deterred from the mission that Jesus has given us. He doesn’t want us spending our time trying to recapture the past, but He wants our eyes stayed upon Him and looking forward to what lies ahead. Through Christ, we have victory on every hand, but earth is the place where we learn endurance, patience, perseverance, and self-control. It’s where we learn how to walk by the Spirit in faith. One day, our walk with Christ will be at such a level of overflowing love, righteousness, and obedience, that we will actually judge angels through our Lord and Savior! It may not feel like it sometimes, but we are growing in unity as the body of Christ, and in the fullness of time, when every knee will bow at the name of Jesus Christ, we will share in his glory!■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“We Will Judge Angels”, written for 4theChristianMan.com© 2022. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.