"Refueling...................."

The apostle Paul, in the Book of Colossians, defines the mystery of the Gospel as being “Christ in me” and then goes on to call it “the hope of glory”. For most of my forty-year walk in this, I took that latter phrase to speak of the indwelling as some sort of investment given us by the Almighty, one that had cost Him His only Son and one that could possibly, due to our humanity yet being a part of the process, fail in its fruition. Last week, though, in searching out something on my mind to share with the men at the mission, it occurred to me, while driving to school, that the meaning could really refer to that which we, as believers, seek to know in our journey, the confirmation of that which we hold to be true, a manifestation of the fact, Spiritual proof of what the Bible tells us to be so. Of course, you start talking like this to most of the Church and they immediately figure you for a fanatic, someone who has fallen off the deep end. Yet the very basics of our doctrinal theology, regardless of what name is over the door, teaches a Trinity and the fact of Jesus having “spanned the gulf” between heaven and earth, a man now “re-connected” with his Maker through the finished work of Calvary. If some are willing to settle for no more than heaven, hanging their faith on their individual view of the Word, to each their own. If others seem to think themselves an appointed, divine authority, commanding health, wealth, and prosperity, to each their own lesson to learn. I have found Him true to His promise, though, that He is already the Pearl of great price, a well of living water within me, an oasis to which I can return again and again. He is an assurance and a strength that comes to me not through any boldness on my part, but as His wisdom dictates in response to my hunger and thirst to know Him as I go…..