I’ve Been To Tomorrow

This blog is coming to you from the future.

I’ve been to tomorrow and I have come back to tell you everything is going to be alright.

I’m in Khabarovsk, Russia — 16 hours ahead of U.S. Central Time, 16 hours ahead of you (most of you anyway). You’re getting ready to live today…I’ve already lived it. And it’s alright.

OK, I’m talking about a “trick” of travel and the perception of time on a round planet.

But it’s no trick when Jesus tells you not to worry about tomorrow. Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord of Heaven and Earth. And Jesus is Lord of Space and Time. The Lord of Time tells you not to worry about what you call tomorrow. He’s already been there and filled it with this promise: Lo, I am with you always.

Time is a tricky matter. But one thing is for sure, time is a perception not to be confused with ultimate reality. God does not exist within time, time exists within God. That should be simple enough to understand (or at least accept). God can declare the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10) because He perceives the end as clearly as the beginning. Past, present and future are phenomena of time-confined creatures, but God is not confined by time. Time came into being when God created light…but God was before light and thus before time began. God is the eternal I AM…not the temporal I used to be or the theoretical I will be.

Does God know the future? Excuse me, but what a stupid question! Of course He does! For that matter, there is no “future” in God’s perception. There are those who assert that to some extent God is ignorant of the future. They call it a tenet of Open Theism. But I call that silly notion what it is: a tenet of human ignorance.

Has God given man free will? You know He has! Oh, you may pretend you don’t know about free will while having a theological or philosophical conversation, but in real life you know we have free will! If during our debate on free will I slap you, you will not accept it that I have no free will and that I was predestined to slap you. Some theological determinists just need a crisp slap in the face to bring them back to reality.

(Remember that old aftershave commercial? *Slap!* Thanks, I needed that. This is part of my Slap A Calvinist Doctrine. I’m joking. Sort of.)

Is God’s knowledge of the future and the reality of man’s free will contradictory? No. You ask, how can that be? I don’t know. But what’s that got to do with it? There’s no end to things I don’t know how they work but I know they do. Gravity is one. God’s foreknowledge and man’s free will is another. I do suspect brother Einstein may be able to shed some light on this, but now I am getting too far from what I set out to say.

Jesus has been to your tomorrow and wants to tell you everything is going to be alright. Believe it! And don’t worry about tomorrow…which, by the way, is the only thing you worry about. One of the best things about faith is it takes all the worry out of the future. Believe in God and take no (worried) thought about tomorrow. The trouble you have today is the only trouble you need to attend to. Don’t borrow trouble from tomorrow. It probably doesn’t even exist and won’t be there when tomorrow arrives, and even if it does it will be at least ten times smaller than what you imagined and you will find the grace of Jesus more than enough to handle that trouble in the present moment.

Believe me! Believe Jesus! And stop worrying. Worry is hell in your head. Don’t let your head go to hell. Change channels in your TV brain — change the channel from the “Everything Bad That Could Happen” channel to the “Jesus is Lord of Space and Time” channel. That channel has program on 24/7 called “Everything Is Going To Be Alright.”

Let peace like a river flow.

BZ

PS

Speaking of rivers, I’m on the banks of the Amur river in Khabarovsk, Russia. I’m only 15 miles from China. It’s a cold and snowy day. I can see this cathedral from my hotel window. There are ice sculptures all over the city. The pastors conference is going well. I have had no jet lag. Really. I think I found the cure for jet lag. Stay up for 44 hours and then sleep for 11 hours. Anyway, that’s what I did and I feel fine.

Time to get ready to preach.

Time is an ocean but it ends at the shore.

Peace.