Read the transcript from today's video devotional.
I was in a meeting the other day, and we were just chatting before we got into business, and we started talking about different movies, and somebody brought up a movie that they really loved, but most of the room hadn't seen it. There was somebody in the room who said, "Oh, I love that movie. Is that the one that ended this way?" and began to share the whole big climax of the end of the movie. I said, "Spoiler alert!” I'm sure you've been in a situation like that where you're invested in a story and you don't want the ending to be spoiled. You like the anticipation, you like the buildup. You've put in so much effort to learn about characters and places, and experience the problems alongside them, that you can't wait to see how it's resolved.
Knowing the Ending Makes It Better
This is just how we like to enjoy stories, but there's one story that's different. There's one story that knowing the ending actually makes it even better. That's God's story of redemption. See, we have the Word of God from Genesis, from creation, all the way to Revelation to how it ends. The Bible doesn't want us to be unaware of the end of the story, because it didn't end after Malachi, the last prophet in the Old Testament where God went silent for 400 years.
It didn't end when this prophet came and began to tell of a Messiah that was coming, and we were just left wondering when and where. It didn't end with the birth of a baby to a carpenter in the city of Bethlehem. It didn't end when this rabbi from Nazareth started performing these incredible miracles and started getting these giant crowds surrounding him. And it didn't end when the Messiah, the King of the Jews, hung on a cross and died.
The story didn't even end when He came back to life and ascended into heaven. The Bible tells us that there's more, and we learn about it in our Verse of the Day today.
It's 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verse 14. The Apostle Paul writes, "For since we believe that Jesus died and was raised to life again, we also believe that when Jesus returns, God will bring back with Him the believers who have died."
The Story Continues
You would be hard-pressed to be able to find somebody, believer or not, who doesn't, at least in some sense, know the end of the Bible, that Jesus is coming back and He's going to raise the dead to life and He's going to make all things new. That's really, really good news for us, because if the story ended already and this was just our happily ever after, this is just the way things were going to continue to be—that doesn't sound very happy to me.
Sure, there's plenty of things that I enjoy in life—my family, my friends. I've got clothes to wear, food to eat. But I also have days where I'm just caught in deep sadness. I have days where I have to hold my kids crying because somebody said something really hurtful to them. I have loved ones that I watch battle illness. I grieve the loss of those who have died. It doesn't seem like a happily ever after because it's not. The Bible says that has yet to come.
Our Hope
See, our hope as Christians is that the story is continuing on, that one day Jesus will return, and when He does, the dead will come back to life, and our dwelling place will be His dwelling place. He will wipe away the sadness and the tears and the death and the darkness. Those things will be no more.
I want to encourage you, if you find yourself in a place in your story that you just feel alone or afraid or anxious or lost, allow God to keep writing the pages of the story. He's continuing to turn them over and over as we work towards the end. So, have hope. Be of courage because the story is not over. I promise you, the ending is a good one.
