God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made him head over all things for the benefit of the church. And the church is his body; it is made full and complete by Christ, who fills all things everywhere with himself.
Ephesians 1:22-23
I love All-Saints Day.
Some might imagine it a little morose to dwell on memories of the saints
who have passed, but I cannot help it; I need to be reminded that the Great
Divide from earthly life, into the
heavenly realm, is as transitory as it gets. Of course we know that heaven is forever, but
that’s just the point-for a Christian!
The “divide” is only an illusion, like the picture of a river’s divide –
it is fed by one source, and both branches flow to the same end…a reunion. And it is still the same river, even if one
cannot see the other. The confluence,
coming together again is that Great Judgment time, when Christ shall gather all
into the fold. This is the promise of
God, and we are His inheritance, bound for the Kingdom.
And so, for today, All Saints are remembered as ONE,
that huge cloud of witnesses[1], Paul
described, surrounding us, encouraging us to that great getting-up day, when
Christ shall come again.
There is one sadness in this fact of our eternal
inheritance – some are disinheriting themselves. In Holy Scripture we are told of a great
book, the Book of Life. Many believe it
is only for the names of those people who receive Christ’s gift of grace in
salvation. And that is true in one
sense. But there is a verse in
Revelation that makes me uncomfortable with that view as exclusive :
All who are victorious will be
clothed in white. I will never erase their names from the Book of Life, but I
will announce before my Father and his angels that they are mine. Revelation 3:5
This verse suggests to me that every human soul’s name
was written in the book before time began, and it is only in failing to kneel
at the cross, in surrender to the grace offered there, which causes Christ to blot-out
the name from the record. That may sound
like slicing hairs a little thin in the theology class, but it is consistent
with a God who universally-loves
everyone – PERFECTLY, so
perfectly He sent his only son, Jesus, to die, and be raised from the grave, to
offer freely the grace that saves a soul.
It tells us grace is offered, but must be accepted if our names are to remain in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
The confluence of life’s river, where once-again the
body will be together is an offer of grace, God’s good, loving arms, extended
wide towards each soul. For those you
have “lost” are not so, they are waiting for that time when Christ gathers the
river back together.
For You Today
The cross is the great divide of history and eternity. Paul reminds us to examine our lives to see
if we’re truly in the faith[2]. When the divide between the living and dead is
removed in the final judgment day, it will no longer be an illusion that
separates[3]
those whose names remain in the Book, and those blotted-out.
There
are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions libraryI. To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some
of these:
Looking for a Place to Hide and Lenten Walk - Part 17
[1] Images: Pixabay.com Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
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