Notes of Faith February 9, 2024
It is never too early to reflect on the truth of resurrection. March 31 is resurrection Sunday this year, but every day is the day to reflect on our own resurrection due to the truth of the resurrection of Jesus Christ!
The Ultimate Ending
He has risen from the dead... Now I have told you. — Matthew 28:7 NIV
I went into the kitchen after a restless night, thinking about a friend recently diagnosed with a brain tumor considered terminal, and turned on the morning news. A man had just hijacked a car with a four-year-old boy inside. Police were chasing the driver through the streets of Denver in rush-hour traffic. A helicopter was filming the pursuit live, showing the car going eighty miles per hour through red lights and busy intersections.
I watched in horror, waiting for the accident that was sure to happen. Amazingly, this car kept missing others. The chase went on for ten minutes with dangerous maneuvers across an open field to access another busy highway, where the man drove the wrong way. Finally, he got a flat tire and the car spun to a stop. The suspect jumped out and started running, but police surrounded him. The chase was over. I felt exhausted but relieved that it ended safely, especially for the child in the back seat.
Later, I watched a rerun of the shocking events with my husband but was surprised to find that it was a totally different emotional experience for me.
I felt no fear because I knew the end of the story.
I kept thinking about the parallel of the car chase to my friend’s cancer diagnosis. Even as her story unfolds with frightening unknowns, I know the ultimate ending. God promises us eternal life. My friend knows that promise, too, and I can pray she keeps receiving comfort in believing.
The Lord has already written the end of the story.
Let Us Pray
Lord, You have already written the ending, which gives us hope while still living in the middle of our stories.
Luke 24:1–8 NIV
On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; He has risen! remember how He told you, while He was still with you in galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’” Then they remembered His words.
~Carol Kuykendall
Excerpted from Faith Over Fear, copyright Guideposts.
2 Cor 1:3-5
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
2 Cor 4:16-18
16 Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. 17 For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, 18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
Pastor Dale