FRIDAY
Forwarded
10:02
SUNDAY
16:57
16:58
YESTERDAY
https://support.rev.com/hc/en-us/articles/360028050672-Up-Caret-Examples
15:42
TODAY
09:14
1 unread message
Hello, Shell point family. My name is Sunny Torres, and welcome to Village Church Connections. Well, are we getting pretty tired of waiting for the return of normal yet? Doesn’t this past almost half a year, seem interminably long as we look for the end in sight. It’s funny the way time feels to us. My husband said to me this morning, “Wow, this week just flew by.” I felt no such thing. Have you ever noticed the whole of our lives fluctuate now and then it seems to be on the roll and you wish you could press the slow motion button to allow more time to relish it. And then at other times it just drags along. My friends at the nursing facility tell me the last years of the journey are the hardest for them and the slowest as well. But the truth is we all live with the same 24 hour allowance, no matter what our feelings convince us otherwise. The strange thing is that I’ve never met anyone who lives with a concrete sense of impermanence. There’s a prevailing feeling, then I’m gonna live forever. And of course that’s a good thing. After all living with a moment by moment fixation on our brevity would cause fear and despair. Well, the bulk of who we are is invisible, soul and spirit. And those elements were designed by God to live forever. Hence, we feel permanent, but our bodies are subject to deterioration and death. So life on earth does eventually come to an end. For some as time drags on it, isn’t coming quickly enough. And for others, well, they don’t even wanna think about it. But the Bible tells us the truth about our earthly lifetime. James 4:14 says, “You don’t know what tomorrow holds.” What is your life? You’re just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Now that’s quick, but that’s not the end of you. Like some people believe. I saw a wonderful illustration that helped me to see the positive side of this seemingly negative scripture concerning our earthly years. Here we go. You see this red part right here of the rope represents our lifetime. Right here is where we started. The day we were born and about halfway right about here, you got married and had a family. And this part represents the years you devoted to working toward retirement and living at Shell Point. And now we’re right about here. And this last mark of red shows the end of the line and something, that’s all she wrote. But wait, hear me out. Here begins to start of perpetuity a world without end. The Bible says that it’s forever on and on and on. And I could run this rope around the earth a thousand times, and then to the farthest star and back again. And it wouldn’t be long enough because timewise, it stretches out to infinity. That’s why the Bible can call our lifetime here, just a vapor that appears and quickly vanishes away. Now, which of these two do you consider most important? Well, the majority of people focus all their attention and their energy on this little red portion because of its immediacy and urgency. And because it demands our undivided attention, life is so valuable. And our lifetimes with their special relationships and delightful achievements are truly a gift from God, no matter how many years they may last. But the most significant part of this little red line is the day you heard the message of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, then having believed you were sealed marked with the security and preservation with the Holy spirit, the promise who has given us a down payment of our inheritance. That’s Ephesians 1:13 through 14. The afterword of God, available to those who have believed and received the truth of salvation in Christ. Is it any wonder that Jesus is taking every opportune moment to seek and save the lost in the short lifetime that he’s granted to each one of us? We were made for eternity life without end in a place where there’s no longer disease, death, suffering, or sorrow to contend with no more time, just dragging along, waiting for something better to happen. You and I are eternal souls. There’s a happy ending for each of our stories. If during that little red part, we’ve embraced the good news of God’s forgiveness through His son, but there can be a bad ending too. I would be wrong to skip over this point. Eternal souls can live on forever in a place described as torment, far worse than we could ever imagine. That’s not what God wants nor what He planned. That’s why he came to ransom us from a fate, worse than death, by paying for us with his own life, his blood. Well time, we all have that in our possession right now. I don’t know how much more time is left on my little red line, but I know that somewhere right about there in my 20s, I heard I believed, and now I’m sealed with God’s insignia for the afterward. He promises me. Life may be brief as a vapor, short and sweet, but most importantly, the beautiful afterward is offered to us while we have the time. Our salvation is the gift that keeps on giving infinitivelly. Can we pray together? Heavenly father, as short as our lives are, they are of infinite value to you. You created each one of us for yourself and designed us for our relationship with you that will stretch on forever. I pray that those who hear and haven’t yet believed and received the gift of eternal life might today would receive their salvation in Jesus name, amen.
16:24