We live in a culture where we spend a lot of time thinking about “now.” We live in an age where immediacy is king. We want things to happen instantly and even our plans for the future are usually limited to what’s happening in the next few days, perhaps the next few weeks, and maybe, just maybe the next few years. We rarely consider the impact today will have on what the course of things in a hundred years.
Yet Scripture is replete with pointing us future-ward. Just like the Israelites were looking forward to when their Messiah would come, Christians are pointed to a future gaze when that same Messiah will come again. We’re to live in anticipation of His return, yet, nowadays this is rarely a subject of conversation, let alone a defining factor in our thought process and our plans. When we discuss the future, we’re usually considering things that we want to do; rarely are we considering what God has promised He will do.
Joseph is a good example of someone who lived with a faith in the future that God had promised. When he died in Egypt, he made plans for his bones to be taken when the exodus to the Promised Land occurred (See Hebrews 11:22). The Israelites wouldn’t receive their inheritance for hundreds of years after Joseph’s death, yet he was looking to the future that God had promised and was orienting his life (and his burial) accordingly. He wasn’t just anticipating what God would do in his lifetime, he was faithfully living for what God would do in the future as well.
Our mindset should be similar. We should live in anticipation of God fulfilling His promises – even if they don’t occur while we dwell on this Earth. And we should orient our life accordingly putting our faith not only in the God who provides today, but in the One who holds the future in His hands.
What do you think……What is a promise that God has made that you should live in anticipation of it being fulfilled? How will this change how you live today?
