Jesus is the same as He always was and He will always be.
“8Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” — Hebrews 13:8 (ESV)
I can have confidence in following Him as I can see the consistency in Him. He was the same in the past as He is today and will be the same into the future. The same God that watched over my ancestors is watching over me and will be watching over my descendants. What a vote of encouragement there is in knowing that God was with me, is with me, and will be with me in all. His consistency demonstrates His endurance in my life and the endurance that I can call on to get me through.
“4For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. 5May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, 6that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” — Romans 15:4-6 (ESV)
The verses above come from the passage in my Bible titled: “The Example of Christ”. And that is exactly what it represents, the example I should follow. The endurance He demonstrated in His life is that endurance I should demonstrate in my own. His consistency shows me and teaches and encourages me to continue on. I am able to call on the hope that He represents. I learn from the past and carry that into the future.
Everything from the past is a teacher of the now and the future. I am not one that studies history, and my thought process is one that says it is in the past and there is nothing we can do about it now. Lori reminds me often that it is not that we can change the past, but we can and should be learning from it to avoid the mistakes of the past and carry on the victories. As a history teacher, she is passionate about learning from what has already happened to move forward with today and into tomorrow. Learning from Jesus is no different, and in fact, He is “The Example” of how we should be acting and approaching.
I have a lot to learn and what better place to gain that learning than from the example. The shining example of what right looks like is Christ and his endurance from yesterday to today and into tomorrow.
What are your though about what has already happened? Are you looking at it as something simply in the past that one can move on from? What if you took the chance to review and learn from the past to avoid the mistakes and carry the victories into today and on to tomorrow?
Trevor's Thoughts 