Most of us have been tempted by the buy-now-and-pay-later mantra.
After all, why wait for something when you can have it right now?
It’s effective with us because of our finite nature as human beings. We’re bound—to a great extent, at least—by time. We’re aware of the past, and we anticipate the future, but more than anything, there’s today.
That causes problems, of course.
The Lord referred to himself as the Alpha and Omega in several places. He’s our Alpha, our starting point, our Creator, our Beginning. “In the beginning God created,” and “In the beginning was the Word . . .” He’s never not existed.
But he also wants us to look in the other direction.
Omega is the last letter in the Greek alphabet, and when Jesus uses it to describe himself, he’s looking to the point in the future where everything will converge.
As Tim Keller puts it, all of history is rushing headlong into his lap.
All things come from Jesus, and all things are going back to him.
When we forget that, we get messed up. We make decisions that bring us the most immediate satisfaction, but they’re shortsighted. I struggle with that, don’t you?
It’s so easy to buy something I want right now, when that money—God’s money—might be used later for a better, less selfish, purpose.
It’s tempting to postpone spending good, God-focused, character-building time with my kids for that nebulous point in the future when everything slows down.
Oh for the courage to live today—every day—with an eternal perspective.
Oh for the discipline to make decisions today based on something more substantial than what’s easiest in the moment.
Jesus is the Omega. He’s the End Point, the Judge, the One “to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13).
Everything is converging toward that final day when he’ll gather us home and all of our histories will finally be understood as his story.
We live today, but let us live it as it is—one more opportunity to be used by our Lord to bring eternity to a time-bound world.
—Chuck
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