Do you often consider traveling to the best place you can think of … Hawaii? The Grand Canyon? The Mediterranean? The Alps? The Great Wall of China? During my teens I decided I most wanted to visit the Egyptian pyramids. I’d developed that interest after doing a hefty school project on the country of Egypt. It just seemed so very different from what I was familiar with in my Eastern Washington surroundings with its mountains and tall evergreens and Springtime buttercups and Summertime huckleberries and wheat fields.
I wasn’t taking into account any of the political or cultural circumstances I was likely to encounter, I just thought about those pyramids. I wasn’t, back then, even thinking about the lack of rain (which I love) and the ever-present sunshine. It was just different, unique, and a little mysterious.
I don’t remember when my fascination with the pyramids dissipated. I just, sort of, forgot about it as life moved along without Egypt in my focus.
It’s easy to do, isn’t it? Something that was a strong interest or focus for a while fades to the background as the next things begin to capture our interest. Surely that is true as we “grow up” through the years with all of the changes personally and in our families and in our communities.
I want to encourage us (me too!) to keep our focus on that which is in front of us now. Not the beautiful seas or mountains or man-made marvels of engineering, though those all are surely worthy of our delighted thanksgiving to God for His amazing Creation and all that He allows us to enjoy. But for each who has put their trust in Jesus as Savior and Redeemer, there is an eternal future to keep in focus!
Our third of four verses we are committing to memory asks God a blunt but rhetorical question … Whom have I in heaven but You? You who are continually with me; who holds my right hand; who guides me through all of life and then … receives me to glory!
Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. Psalm 73.25
To have the certainty, the assurance, of eternity is to be closely held. And it is from that place of refuge that we can encourage one another to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12.2)
As Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday draw near … consider the sacrifice by such a great love … that we might have a future eternity in heaven … nothing on earth that I desire besides Jesus!
Psalm 73.23-25
23 Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand.
24 You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
Three of four secure truths:
- I am held, protected.
- The Lord guides me and will receive me to glory!
- There isn’t anything I desire more than eternity with Jesus!
Tell someone this week that you are working on memorizing four secure truths about who God is and why your heart’s desire is that Jesus be known and believed and proclaimed so that others may know too.
You are so loved, Colleen