"Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created." Revelation 4:11 (KJ)
If I could ask you one question and receive an honest answer it might be this:
What reality are you serving with the life you've been given?
It might seem an odd question, especially without further explanation, but the fact is that it's a question worthy of some honest introspection - some inward examination and thoughtful consideration. The answers one might receive could vary widely based on who the question is posed to in the world at large, but for the true Christ follower, ... there should only be one.
I'm sometimes challenged personally by the things that I write. And as odd as that may seem, I know that at times the things that I write about are based on things that the Lord brings to my own personal attention through His efforts to further conform me to His image. As I take stock of my own ammunition - gathering a summary of my own service in order to answer the question, I'm very aware that though there might be a number of potential answers and that my own service to the answer I would certainly prefer to give needs further focus and refining, the Lord has made positive progress.
If we believe what God has said - what He's made available in scripture, we know that there will come a day in final accounting when ancestry, nationality, race, political party, possessions, worldly stature and anything of worldly origin and motivation will have no value and no worth of acclaim to us. All of that is temporary and will be left behind, but we'll go on to be examined without any worthy value of those things on our account and we'll be searched for anything worthy of eternal note and value in God's economy as we prepare to go forward in eternity.
In the end, when the time comes for the final judgment, it'll be God's reality that we'll come face to face with. Only one relationship, or the lack of it, between God and each of us that will rightly overshadow any and every other in importance in that moment of final judgment - just as it should have from the moment that He first gave us breath. What's revealed in that moment of God's final examination of us and our hearts toward Him will be the defining moment of our eternal future. What we did in surrender and honest service to Him and to what He values will be the only credit to our account ... and that's a reality that none of us will escape.
Father God is constant in all of His attributes - not the least of which is His love for us, but there's a point in time coming for each and all of us when our opportunity to either embrace or decline His invitation to fulfill our purpose to have been created will pass and that purpose is to serve His good and holy pleasure.
I thank God for the grace of time to seek His forgiveness for my own failures in service to His purpose and for His continuing refinement and work in conforming me to His reality through Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Sanctification - His conforming us into the image of Christ is an ongoing process and one we must take seriously and yield to eagerly.
True reality is as God has defined it. That's the only reality that exists.
"He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?" Micah 6:8 (NKJ)
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