The grass withers, the flower fades,
When the breath of Yahweh blows upon it;
Surely the people are grass.
8 The grass withers, the flower fades,
But the word of our God stands forever. – Isaiah 40:7-8
The Word of God lasts forever.
35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away. -Matthew 24:35
Photo source: Challen Yee
Some of you might know I often posts photos of roses from my garden. It can be a daily routine when I happen to see a particularly eye catching rose, to take photo and share it with my friends.
The attention given to flowers, such a short-lived delight, is an appreciation of a creation of God. The brevity of a flower’s life can begin to help you appreciate that all life outside of God is temporary including our own lives, but there is also the reality that death comes to all earthly life.
And why are you worried [about clothing]? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, 29 yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. – Matthew 6:28-19 (specific article deemphasized to highlight the worthlessness of worry in general).
But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! – Matthew 6:30. In a practical sense, we are often overvaluing things that are corruptible and that causes worry because that value has little value in the kingdom of God (as much as we are blinded to that fact – we end up worrying)
You begin to appreciate the brief interactions with people you know and even the strangers who may also grace your life. After some time, you even can appreciate the little devils that at some point you thought the worst of, those who were a test to your sensibilities, comfort and security.
In Christ, His reality increases and our perceived reality decreases. That is why you hear about Christians forgiving their tormentors, it’s not a fluke. Christians are definitely navigating and confronting life for the long game and the long game is established in the Truth which is embodied in the divine person of Christ.
28 And do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. – Matthew 11:28.
If you wonder about ultimate justice, fear no longer. If you wonder if you can forgive, God made a way. If you wonder if you can ever be good enough the be reconciled to a holy and righteous God, you can find rest , anchored securely in the Grace of God. Because believers fear the one true God, and we must “fear” God, we can love more like God. God is glorious in all His attributes and is perfect love, therefore, through Christ, we can then love one another more fully.
28 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” -Matthew 11:28-30.
Playing the long game, doesn’t mean neglecting the temporary. There’s a lot to learn about every cycle we experience. Even though the flower lives for only few days, the quality of that flower is established in the good (or bad) soil it grows from. How applicable is the quality of the foundation provided for your children, your marriage, that which you fill your mind with in your daily life.
If you, as a Christ follower are not seriously seeking knowledge and conviction of sin through the Words of God found in the Bible, question yourself if you are really serious or is it merely lip service. I would wonder. I would ask. I would question the very messages that come from the pulpit that profess otherwise or any other heretical teaching that has taken you on another path which deemphasizes studying God’s words preserved in the Bible. Remember the path is wide that leads to destruction, the narrow way, the True Way is found only by few. – Matthew 7:13-14 (paraphrased).
With the certainty that heaven and hell exists, you want to be on the correct path, the Cross shaped one, created by the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, that only takes on each survivor stripped bare without the adulterated foolishness of the world. One soul at a time. It’s personal, very personal. God wants it that way.
The Temporal Nature of Things we Value
It does seem that in life most people are constantly pursuing things that are temporal as though they have an eternal value or nature to them. As we get wiser we begin to realize that so many of the things we have obsessed over are not only temporal, but they are easily replaced by another object to obsess over. Satisfaction from material or worldly objects doesn’t last.
It’s not that we shouldn’t appreciate those things that are here today and gone tomorrow. Flowers are a good example. They bloom, they have beauty, they are a natural creation that responds to care and attention. God made flowers to be as glorious as they are, to be a wonder of nature and part of His great creation.
There are plenty of beautiful things to make our lives more of a joy, and yet there are some of these things that we come nearly to worship, if not indeed we worship. Idols often become the food which sustains us. Until that point they avail themselves as spiritually insufficient and we come crashing down from an peak built on a poor foundation.
Don’t rest the security of your eternal soul on untested, demonically sourced measures, one that will betray you because it is based on sin, departing from the moral laws. Do not trust that which will be pulverized to worthlessness in the face of God’s holiness and judgment.
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; 2 and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.
3 And by this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. 4 The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; 5 but whoever keeps His word, truly in him the love of God has been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: 6 the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked. – 1 John 2:1-6
Jesus Christ is powerful, supreme power. Don’t get lost thinking otherwise, spinning your wheels as life steadily marches towards a death that wait us all. If you want to develop your personal relationship as a surrendered man or woman of God, serve Christ as Lord and Master and treat the Bible as Truth, and the Truth will be revealed to you.
[Jesus upon being tempted by Satan] “…answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’” – Matthew 4:4
As we become to understand God, we begin to grasp the greater and eternal beauty that is God’s glory, which includes each of us as part of His creation.
We chase after many things, including worldly relationships, wealth, material goods, sensation, and the many things remind us that our lives must have counted for something valuable. We have a deep set desire to be known, to be remembered.
I suggest, it’s because of our non-existent relationship with God that we find ourself in this relentless pursuit and wonder what would give meaning to our lives. Because nothing apart from God through Christ have any good eternal value, though we may think so. Time should be a sobering factor for each of us since none of have certainty how long God gives us in our relatively short lives (with and without respect to eternity).
The time is now.
We are fallen. How far are we fallen?
We are wired to worship and also fail morally. We don’t just fail morally, we fail oh-so catastrophically when the filthy rags of our self-righteousness become like the Empire’s Death Star exploding into smithereens before the Force.
You cannot generate enough FX enhanced cinema to exhibit how fallen we are in relation to a sovereign and holy God. We need God’s Grace, His unmerited favor. It should suffice to say that we must repent and surrender to the Lordship of Christ, whatever it takes.
We treat mortal things as eternal because our souls thirst for immortal even if we are constantly deceived by imposters. If we do not know God, we will turn to other things. We are wired to worship, even if we suffer from idolatry, based on a great propensity to fool ourselves like the moral degenerates that we all are, causing us to fail, hopefully repentantly, when exposed and confronted by an inkling of God’s truth, morality, and holy standards.
And so, the flower fades.
It’s departure should help remind us that we need to be prepared to connect to the eternal beauty and peace founded upon Christ’s love and grace.
For a one minute explanation of the Gospel from the late Pastor John MacArthur, watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCP9UcC7BzE
For a review of the Ten Commandments: https://www.challenyee.com/the-ten-commandments/
All quoted excerpts have footnotes removed, usually from Legacy Standard Bible (LSB), sometimes from New International Version (NIV), on rare occasion the Amplified Bible (AMP).
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