Heart Tracks - Where Are You Living?

    Scripture contains such a rich promise in the words, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever."  Words so easy to memorize, yet so easy to at the same time forget.  Like so much of what has been promised us by Him, we know what He says, we just haven't lived in the power of what He speaks.  I think it can be especially true of these words.

     I saw this question posed recently:  Where do we spend most of our time as far as our thought life goes?  In the past, the present, or the future?  Think on that.  How much of our mental energy goes into dwelling upon and replaying what has already passed in our lives, both good and bad?  How many of us continue to re-live not only horrible defeats and failures, but glorious victories as well?  We can make "living quarters" there, and never really move beyond that place.  What's more, if we're not spending all our time living in the past, we may do so as concerns the future, constantly living in fear and anxiety as to just what might happen there.  When we live in one or both of these places, and under the tyranny of those places, we have to come to realize, awaken to the fact that we're living there without Him.  Jesus Christ, who's the same yesterday, today, and forever, is not present in either of those places because we have never truly come to know and experience Him today.  He is present with us today, now, and today is where He calls us to live.  When we come to know Him in this degree of intimacy right now, the power of both the past and the future and the fears, regrets, anxiety, and pain we can associate with both, is broken.  When we come to live in the now with Him, we can begin to know that He who is with us now, is also present in the past, and will be so in the future.  He will not change our past, but He will redeem it, cleanse it, and break its hold on us.  We'll not live captive to old defeats or victories, and so be free to live rich right now.  We'll not live in fear or be anxious about what could happen, because we are living in the assurance of His presence and life now, and that assurance gives us a firm and sure hope as concerns the future.
    So much, too much, of my life has been taken up with living as a captive to both my past and my future.  These are two jailers that should have no power over any of us, but they do.  Our enemy, satan, is expert at using both of them to keep us prisoner to both, and usually at the same time.  He is powerless to do this when we refuse the jail cell, and accept and enter into the life He calls us to right now.  He is present now, and when that reality fills our life, we can experience the healing of, and freedom from our past.  Knowing the joy and wonder of His presence and life now, frees us to live in a place of rest and joy and as concerns the future.  He who gives us victory now, will be there to give us victory then.  This is what makes us "more than conquerors" in Him.  When we live in the "now" with Him, life isn't defined by our ability to make up for the past, or try to relive its high places.  It's not defined either by what could come upon us at some future time.  It's defined by His constant supply of the bread and water of life....right now. 
    Most of us have heard many times that He redeems the past and holds the future, but the words will seem hollow unless we truly enter into His life and presence right now, and live, as one man put it, in His "eternal now."  Where have you been living?  Where will you live now?

Blessings,

Pastor O