“. . . and Joshua said to them: ‘Cross over before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of the Jordan, and each one of you take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel, that this may be a sign among you when your children ask in time to come, saying, “What do these stones mean to you?”‘” (Joshua 4:5,6).

IS THERE A RING ON YOUR FINGER THAT HAS A MEANING OUT OF ALL PROPORTION TO THE SIZE OF THE RING ITSELF? Perhaps there is. And we treasure many other things that have more importance than their physical size would indicate: photographs, mementos, keepsakes, and such. An antique sofa and an album of baby pictures might both be irreplaceable, but if the house were burning down, most of us (the mothers among us, at least) would grab the baby pictures to save, and not just because they’re easier to carry!

TAKE TIME TO FIND OUT WHAT THINGS MEAN. Years later, there might not have been many people in Israel who knew what that pile of rocks on the west bank of the Jordan meant. But those who took the time to find out would have been rewarded with a bit of knowledge that was both interesting and beneficial. These days, most of us stay so busy with our own trivia, we rarely stop to ask the meaning of even the most important things around us. But we’re the losers when we fail to ask, “What does that mean?”

TAKE TIME TO APPRECIATE WHAT THINGS MEAN. In regard to God, there are a number of events, observances, and even physical objects (what about your own Bible?) that have deep meaning attached to them. Do we appreciate these? Do we count them among our treasures? We need to take precautions against ever becoming so jaded that the meaningful things in life seem stale or dull.

TEACH YOUR CHILDREN WHAT THINGS MEAN. We do our children a disservice when we allow them to reach maturity without having been taught what the truly important things in life mean. Meanings have to be handed down, and so it’s the privilege and responsibility of each generation to see that its young people know what those who’ve gone before have found meaningful.

Few things are inherently valuable; it’s what they MEAN to somebody that makes them so. So meanings are very important, and we’d be better off if we spent more time thinking about them.

“The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it” (Carl Jung).

Gary Henry – WordPoints.com

“Then Moses rose early in the morning and went up Mount Sinai . . . Now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth . . .’” (Exodus 34:4-6).

MOSES WAS GIVEN A GLIMPSE OF GOD THAT NO OTHER HUMAN BEING HAS EVER BEEN GIVEN. Exodus 33:11 says that “the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.” After Moses’ death, it was said that “there has not arisen in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face” (Deuteronomy 34:10). But it’s helpful to remember WHAT God revealed to Moses. It was not just that God was REAL but that He was also GOOD: “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth.”

In Hebrews 11:6, we are told that to come to God we must believe two things about Him: that He IS (existence) and that He is A REWARDER OF THOSE WHO DILIGENTLY SEEK HIM (benevolence). If the first takes faith, the second does as well. In a world where short-term appearances can call God’s goodness into question, we need to hang on to the indisputable evidence that God has given of His good will toward us — nowhere more clearly than at the Cross.

We ought not to take the goodness of God for granted. God might have existed and been something very different than the God that He is. But as it turns out, He is a God who is benevolently inclined toward us, and He has REVEALED Himself to be that kind of God. We can’t know God perfectly or completely, but what we can know of Him, we can know truly. We don’t have to speculate about it; we can know for sure that our God is good.

Knowing that God is “merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth” should make us want to reach out to Him. He is a God for whom we can yearn with admiration and love. We dare not forget that He is also a God of justice, who will banish us from His presence forever if we refuse to lay down our rebellion against Him. But oh, how nourishing it is to know that His inclination and His fervent desire are to save us.

“While the name of God is secret and His essential nature incomprehensible, He in condescending love has by revelation declared certain things to be true of Himself” (A. W. Tozer).

Gary Henry – WordPoints.com

“This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their heart . . .” (Ephesians 4:17,18).

FOR ALL PRACTICAL PURPOSES, MOST PEOPLE LIVE AS IF THERE WERE NO GOD. One doesn’t have to be a newspaper reporter to have noticed that there is a vast amount of desperation in the world. In one form or another, fear and hopelessness have grown so common that we’ve almost gotten used to them. Whatever we might say we believe, our lives in the real world, outwardly at least, often look like those of people who have little hope.

If there were no such thing as God, of course, all of this would make sense. If there was nothing beyond the confines of this world worth reaching forward to, desperation would be an understandable (if still unfortunate) response to the condition the world is in.

But many of us believe there is a God. We believe there are things worth reaching for in eternity, if we choose to do so, and even in this life, we believe there are principles and values that can make a difference for good in our thinking. How is it that we, of all people, live like individuals whose backs are to the wall? If people can’t tell any difference between us and our non-Christian neighbors in the way we handle the discouragements of life, what kind of commentary is that on our convictions? And what kind of reflection does that cast upon the One whom we confess as Lord?

If, through the gospel of Christ, we’ve been forgiven of our sins and reconciled to God, then we’re no longer among those who have “no hope and [are] without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12). Whatever may be our sorrow, we should not “sorrow as others who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). As Christians, we may still be many things, but DESPERATE should not be one of them.

We don’t think what’s right and do what’s right just for the sake of appearance, of course. But even so, if those who know us would say that we seem to be just as desperate as anyone else in the world, that ought to give us pause to think. If people can’t SEE any difference, then IS there any difference? If we don’t SEEM to be reaching forward, then ARE we reaching forward? Are we really?

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation” (Henry David Thoreau).

Gary Henry – WordPoints.com

“What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life” (Romans 6:21,22).

EVERY PATH LEADS SOMEWHERE. Every action in which we engage — indeed, every thought that we think — takes us one step further down a road that leads to some destination.

Speaking of the godless way the Christians in Rome had lived before their conversion to Christ, Paul asked, “What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed?” All of our actions, both the godly and the ungodly, bear some kind of “fruit.” In the case of ungodliness, the fruit is deadly. “The end of those things,” Paul wrote, “is death.” Death is not just the arbitrary punishment of God for evildoing; it’s the inevitable RESULT or CONSEQUENCE of it. Death is simply THE END OF THAT ROAD. If a person travels that way and refuses to change, death is the only place he can get to. It’s where that road leads, no matter who the traveler is.

Choices always entail consequences. Since we have free wills, we can make our choices freely, but having made our choices, we can’t then choose our consequences. The consequences are unalterably attached to the choices, and we can’t have the former without the latter. We may, it’s true, avoid the consequences for some period of time — but we can’t do so forever. Some day, there will be a payday, and when it comes, we need not be surprised.

It’s an immutable principle that “whatever a man sows, that he will also reap” (Galatians 6:7). To believe otherwise is to deceive ourselves and mock God. But it’s not just in eternity that we’ll reap as we’ve sown; the harvest begins before we die. There can’t be any question that the consequences of our actions begin to come down on us well before the Judgment Day. Paul spoke of those who, while still living, were “receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due” (Romans 1:27).

Are you and I ready to eat the fruit of our ways? We might as well be, because the “banquet” is surely being prepared for us and we’ll have no choice but to eat it when it’s set before us. We can run, but we can’t hide. The law of cause and effect is no respecter of persons, and it’ll catch up with every last one of us eventually.

“Everybody, sooner or later, sits down to a banquet of consequences” (Robert Louis Stevenson).

Gary Henry – WordPoints.com