Where are we headed?
by Abiding Love
Romans 6:22 — Now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.
As a child I remember jumping into the car with my family and we would begin driving. As I sat there, occasionally I would wake up to the reality that I didn’t know where we are going. “Mom, dad, where are we headed?”
I still ask that question. I look at the news of the government shutdown and wonder, “Where are we headed?” I ponder the fascinating landscape of my family’s life (one child in college, one returning to college, one in high school) and I wonder where all my children end up in life. Where are we headed? I give attention to our congregation and the ways it has shifted and changed in the year and a half I have been here and I try to envision, “Where are we headed?”
Thinking about the future can be exciting or anxious, full of anticipation or confusion.
Some aspects of where our lives are headed are unknown to us now. Other aspects are known. Today God puts our heart upon what is known and what he has revealed.
In the verse from Romans 6, Paul reminds us where we have come from. We are sinners who have been set free from the guilt of sin, the curse of the law, and eternal death. Jesus used his own lifeblood as the atoning sacrifice for our sins and the sins of the whole world. Knowing that we have already been set free from sin means that we know we are headed into a future where God’s grace rules our life, where forgiveness and peace with God will be what we know, where our crosses and even our deaths will give way to eternal life in heaven.
We also know this. That Jesus has set us free from sin so that we are headed into a life of living for God. We are headed into a life of spiritual growth and maturity as we study God’s Word. We are headed into a life where God uses everything, even our struggles to teach us, refine us, and draw us closer to him.
We spend time planning for our futures. We make financial plans for our homes and ministry plans for our congregations. We try to map out where we are headed using the best of our human wisdom. We make these plans knowing that where we are headed is not always in our control. Sometimes God’s plans aren’t ours.
But we can trust the God at the wheel of our life, because he has told us where we ultimately are headed. He has set us free from sin and is not guiding our lives into spiritual maturity. He is guiding us through this world and on to eternal life.
Peace in Jesus,
Pastor John Gensmer
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