S23P17 – The abundant life: mystery
1 Cor. 15:51-52
Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed—in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
When I was a freshman in college, I had a poster on my wall with a quotation by Albert Einstein. It read I want to know God’s thoughts. The rest are details. At that time, I was nowhere near being a Christian. However, there was something about this quotation that struck a chord in me. If a real God truly existed, how incredible it would be to know what is on his mind. Nothing else one could know would even compare in value to knowing the mysteries that must be inside the mind of the one who is infinite and omniscient. Being a Christian today, my desire to know the thoughts of God is even greater. Good thing for me we serve a God who abounds in mystery and desires to share his secrets with us. As we follow him in our Christian walk, He reveals more and more of these mysteries to us.
The New King James version of the New Testament contains at least two dozen instances of the word mystery or mysteries. In some cases, the scriptures speak about the mystery that God revealed to us through his Son Jesus Christ. That would be the mystery of salvation. In other scriptures, we are taught that there are more mysteries to be shared with us. In fact, we know that our incomplete and partial knowledge of things will one day come to perfection. [1 Cor. 13:9-10] Imagine what it would be like to fully understand the love and grace of God without having to question some of the ways in which we see them manifest in this world. Imagine what it would be like to have answers to all of the questions we have about God and the spiritual world we cannot see around us. We are promised that these mysteries will one day be shared with us. But God in his graciousness shares some of those things with us in the here and now.
We serve the One who holds all knowledge. Through his love and generosity, He shares that knowledge with us. He lets us in on his mysteries, his secrets. He calls us friends and children, holding us in intimate esteem and letting us into the most private of places. Our God does not lord his mysteries and secrets over us but invites us to partake in the knowledge of them. Just like that old poster says, we should desire to know God’s thoughts. We should thirst for the revelation of his mysteries. We should want to be let in on the secrets. Good thing we are friends with the God who wants to let us in even more. Father, give us a hunger for your mysteries and secrets, and let us grow in this knowledge even today.