Conclusion: Many Splendored Thing #38

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION OF CHPATER 3

            What a magnificent provision God has made for man!

            He has loved us with a love so immense and so completely adapted to our needs that simple gratitude requires an eternal song of praise from “All people that on earth do dwell”, Psalm 100:1.     My prayer is that everyone reading these first 3 chapters is becoming more and more aware of the sheer greatness of God and His glorious provision for His beloved creature made in His image: mankind.

Yet there is such widespread misery, profound sorrow, and dreadful hatred among these persons made in His image. I have used my dear sister Georgianna and beloved brother Jim as examples. To me these dear ones have been something like a lens through which I have seen the struggling world, congregations to which I preach and foreign nations where I have traveled as a missionary. These are all people in such enormous need that we feel overwhelmed and desperate when we try to help.  A real danger is that we can become cynical, so intimidated by the horrors we see all around us that we sink into despair.  Why should we even try to do anything about it?

There is a good and Biblical answer to that despairing question.

The Holy Spirit keeps speaking to us through scripture, reminding us that He is presently at work.  He is telling us wonderful things in the Bible about Jesus working right now to restore all things to its original glory. Remember what God the Father said to Jesus, His only begotten Son, in Hebrews 1:13.  He said to Him  “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”  We should not have to scratch our heads long to figure out that this verse is telling us that there is an active conspiracy within the Trinity itself to transform our whole world.

Wonderful, optimistic texts like this abound in our Bibles, but I am not going to quote anymore, just advise you to be on the lookout for them.  Fill your heart with this kind of expectation and then you will be able to do whatever little thing that helps you help those struggling people, knowing you are part of that divine conspiracy. What we accomplish may seem small, but it is part of God’s sweeping plan to restore all things.

This optimistic approach which the Bible itself encourages is my own personal reason for being hopeful in behalf of people like my sister Georgiana and my brother Jim. It is why I keep right on preaching and teaching the “wonderful words of life” that I find in the Bible. Let’s join together in our hope and in our ongoing efforts to be a blessing to struggling people.

And stay with this book!

            We have just got started.

Next we are going to look at a man whom God used to change the course of history.

Chapter 4 will focus primarily on God’s work in the life of Abram/Abraham.  God loved Abram/Abraham and took a grand initiative with him, drawing him into a Covenantal Relationship with Himself.  Then God began using Abram and his descendants to bless our whole world.  The COVENANT takes on powerful new meaning through God’s amazing use of this sinner called Abram/Abraham.

            Chapter 4 will also begin to suggest some reasons why my sister Georgianna and brother Jim had to deal with the great sorrows that plagued their lives. It  will begin to show us how our Lord works by his miraculous grace through sinners like Abraham and like you and me to help our fellow sinners through these crises into “peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1).”