Devotional - 99-10-18 - Einstein...? Well, Maybe Not

1 John 3:21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God.

Switzerland recently lamented the death of one of its brightest and most promising intellectual stars. Johan Unterwald was described by college professors as "the next Albert Einstein. " The young man from Zurich was an accomplished mathematician. But Johan's last math problem was one in which he made a significant error. He made a 250 ft. bungee jump with a 300 foot bungee cord. He died instantly on impact.

How's your math? A lot of people miscalculate in this life. They live days as if days don't pile up and years as if years will never end. A lot of people live without a view towards eternity. Yet, eternity is one day away. Sure, its not one day away for all of us, but it is as close as a day away for any of us.

Do you believe in the sovereignty of God? Do you believe in the providence of God? Do you believe that God has control of the little and the big things in your life? If you do, then you may have confidence. You may have confidence this day, this week, for the rest of the month, the rest of the year, through the entire next millennium, and for all eternity that God's promises to love and care for you, His child, are true for you and touch every situation in your life.

"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil," Psalm 23:4. This is the confidence of the Christian. A Christian who walks before God in righteousness and holiness can have this confidence. A Christian has a right to this confidence and no one else does. This is because when we walk, wherever we walk, we walk before God, in His presence, and so says the Scripture, for "the righteous are as bold as a lion," Proverbs 28:1.

The confidence that trusts in the sovereignty of God can come before Him with boldness in prayer. We may speak to Him freely with our hearts open before Him and our minds attentive to His leading. "Let us come boldly to the throne of grace," Hebrews 4:16. Our faith and trust in God and His providence are our pillars that hold up the house that our bold prayers build. "In whom we have boldness, and access with confidence, through faith in Him," Ephesians 3:12

Years ago a soldier was dying in an army hospital. He was in great agony when a visitor asked him, "What church are you of?" The soldier replied, "Of the church of Jesus Christ." "I mean," continued the visitor, "of what persuasion are you of?" "Persuasion," said the dying soldier, "I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, not things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus." May such confidence be as real to us today as it really is ours in Christ already. (Romans 8:38, 39)

Soli Deo Gloria,
T-

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