Maybe that’s why Paul said, "I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:14). He kept his eyes on Jesus through the beatings, the assaults, the imprisonments, the verbal harassments.  That’s what faith does.

 

Two months after her failure, Florence Chadwick walked off the same beach into the same channel and swam the distance, setting a new speed record, because she could see the land...

 

Faith may have failed the apostles, but Jesus didn’t.  He’s always like that you know, coming to our aid when we don’t merit it or deserve it.  So Jesus stands up against the Goliath storm that beat the apostles into submission, and slays it, not with a stone, but word from His mouth.

 

It is no different today.  While we are on the adventure with Jesus, an adventure of faith, God does not take us out of the storms, but He speaks to us of our eternal

protection.

 

And you say, “What eternal protection?  Don’t missionaries die at the hands of cruelty?  Didn’t my love one suffer and die?  How can you talk of eternal protection for even those who have faith?”

 

To that I answer, as would many of you, that I have seen answers to prayers as cancers have gone away or one sickness or problem have yielded to the hand of God.

 

But even death does not mean that God has been silenced or that He has not been faithful to His promises.

 

Did not Christ say that He has gone to prepare a place for us?  And is not that place prepared for us far better than this fallen, tattered, blood-soaked planet?

 

What pain is in heaven?  What tears are there?  What in heaven can hamper our joy?  What in the place Christ has prepared for us, will ever do us harm?

 

To transition from this veil of tears to stand under the streaming lights of glory is certainly evidence of God’s continued presence, not the absence of it!

 

May God the Holy Spirit strengthen us as we take our adventure in this life with J

Jesus.  May we be assured the God is with us each step of the way... that we have been washed clean of all sin through the blood of the Lamb... that a place is prepared for us, not at the end of our adventure with Jesus, but where our adventure really begins.  Amen.

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