Ken Boa Reflections Ministries

Dr. Ken Boa: I can't help it. I put this thing up here because this is where I find myself living now. I'm desiring for you to do something similar. At least focus on the central column. I think that would be a great thing to do. Just carry it with you. It doesn't take much to do it. I think it's a powerful resource to remind you throughout the course of the day of what the essence is. What do you seek?

The three as you recall on this side here are one trinity, as it were, a trilogy of thoughts about the questions of Jesus. The last one is the prayer of St. Richard of Chichester, which was written in about 1200 AD. Know you, love you, follow you. But the thing for me that made the difference was to put this trinity in the center. I work on this, and then can go that way. So it works both ways. It's just a tool that works for me. I don't know if it'll work for you, but it can't hurt to try. I do it with Karen every night to make sure she's reviewing that as well.

We are up to Ephesians. We're studying Ephesians, the first half right now. We're going to continue on to chapters four to six. We've talked about our wealth in Christ. We have no commandments, we've talked about this before because there's nothing you can do to earn or achieve or merit those gifts that God's given to you. You've been given great wealth, but then the basis for your walk is your wealth. The basis for your practice is your position. The basis for how you live is who you are. You cannot imitate Christ unless you've been identified with him. We've talked about this before.

Consequently, this left column, which is the first half of the book, as it is in the first half of Colossians and also Romans, always starts with the foundation of who you are and then after that, what you should do. That's to be noticed by us. That's why I put it this way instead. I just said, let's put it in this head, and that you have your identity in Christ as your foundation. Then this is how you respond, so that there's a reciprocal relationship between being and doing, between belief and behavior. So there's a mutuality that goes on between these two.

My desire for us is that we would live in such a way that we manifest that life of Christ in us and through us as us. This is a fundamental theme, and we've seen how the Father has chosen and adopted and accepted us in chapter one. We've seen how the Son has redeemed us, forgiven us, revealed God's will to us, and made us an inheritance in chapter two. We've seen how the Spirit has sealed us and pledged us all in chapter one, verses 4 to 6, 7 to 12, and 13 to 14. That's an amazing sentence in the Bible. I've gotten to think about that one long run-on sentence in Ephesians chapter one. That observation has so much wealth to it, and it bears repeating because it's so rich and profound.

We've been chosen and redeemed and sealed, and thus there's a following prayer for enlightenment, this positional prayer which I have used as one of the four life-changing prayers of Paul. This great prayer, chapter one, verses 17 to 19: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him. I ask that the eyes of your heart might be enlightened so that you will know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power toward us who believe.

That's something I quote every day, and so it's a part of me and I'd love it to be a part of you. There's no reason you can't learn it, but at least these are prayers I'm calling your attention to because I want to call your attention to the prayer in Ephesians chapter three as well, and we're going to be looking at that very soon. These are powerful transformative prayers that make all the difference in our lives. They can make an enormous difference in our perspective and our being.

We have this first portion. It's a prayer for enlightenment, for revelation, for you to grasp your position more and more in a very real way so that it becomes more real, more profound, more powerful for you. It's a prayer that God would give you more than you could get on your own. This is a prayer that he would give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation. You can't do that, but he can make it meaningful to you, and the more he does that, the more profound it becomes.

If that's redemption and this praise for redemption and a prayer for revelation, then we are now moving into the second portion, which is the position of the believer. When we look at your position, we see we have now been transformed into this position from being dead to God to alive. In chapter two, he talks about how the Jews and Gentiles have both been reconciled into one body, and so that's a profoundly powerful thought as well.

We're going to continue in chapter three, the revelation of the mystery of the church. You can see here that there's a mystery. What does a mystery mean in scripture? It's something that we can't explain, but also something that has not been known but is now been revealed for the first time. This was not known in the old covenant days. This was not known until it was given to Paul as a stewardship.

Let me read that text for you just so you can see. Paul says in chapter three: "For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles, if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace which was given to me for you." A stewardship was something that God gave him that was a gift and part of his ministry. By revelation, there was made known to me the mystery, like a sacred secret. It wasn't known in the Old Covenant days. Nobody knew about how this was going to work out with the Jew and the Gentile being reconciled in one body. They never grasped that, although it was foretold typologically in Pentecost.

The feast of Pentecost corresponds to the birth of the church. That's when it became revealed, but this thing did not exist before. It's a thing that was not in the Old Covenant, and it came into being, Jew and Gentile in one body of Christ. It's quite intriguing to me because I look at this and see covenants that God made with Israel. Of course, the Abrahamic Covenant was the key covenant to begin with because it was an unconditional covenant made by God with his people. It would consist of the land, the seed, and the blessing. All the world would be blessed because of Abraham.

The land, the unconditional covenant, had those three components. The so-called Palestinian Covenant related to the land, the so-called Davidic Covenant relates to the seed, and then the New Covenant, the blessing. The New Covenant in Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36 was promised: "I'm going to make a new covenant with you, not as the Old Covenant, and I'm going to put my law in your hearts." That's in anticipation of what would happen in Christ, and so all of that is being fulfilled as a result in the purposes of God.

Whereas the Mosaic Law was not a permanent covenant. That was a conditional covenant, and it finally ceased, and so the New Covenant came to pass that you cannot have the both. Does that make sense? Any questions about that? It's important for you to grasp that these are processes. It's really part of the revelation of the promises of God given through David, the Davidic Covenant that was made. You and I are recipients and blessed by that reality. In the New Covenant, we have the church and then we have the kingdom.

You have the formation of Israel with the patriarchs, Moses, Joshua, and so forth. Then you had a theocratic period of time where you had judges that were reigning over them. But then they went into the kingdom period, and they abandoned the judges. It was no longer a theocracy, but a monarchy. It didn't go very well at the end of the day. There were some good kings, but most of them were bad. At the end of the day, God's purposes were fulfilled and there was an exile though because of their disobedience, and that exile 70 years of captivity.

Why 70 years? Anyone remember the reason for that, why they spent 70 years in Babylon? It was 70 periods of sabbatical years, Sabbath years. They didn't do the one year in seven. Do you think you're going to do the year of Jubilee where all the pieces go back into the box and they start over again? No, never happened. But the interesting thing is they never even did a sabbatical year. They didn't let the land rest.

What was the purpose of the sabbatical year, the Sabbath year? Why did he give them a year where they were to just enjoy each other? "I will provide for you. You have to trust me. You're not to plant, you're not to work. You're to enjoy one another, build your relationship with God and with one another." Why didn't they do it? They didn't trust God enough to do it. For every year they chose not to have that Sabbath rest, which would have been a wonderful restoration—imagine one year in seven where you have nothing but time to enjoy relationships and God, trusting him he'll provide as he made sure he would do.

Instead of that, they chose to take no chances, as it were. They wouldn't trust God. Here's what happened. The irony is you can pay me now, you can pay me later. For every year the land did not enjoy its Sabbath rest—how many years were they there? 490. You do the math. One in seven, how many is that in Babylon? 70 years. The land enjoyed its Sabbaths and you didn't. You suffered. You see the amazing irony, tragic and ironic, but sad because if they'd only trusted him, it would have been well with them. Instead, they rebelled.

You see this constant theme that God is appealing to his people, and they continue to pull back in rejection. The monarchy ends with an exile then because of the failure to obey God. There was a restoration, and there were three deportations to Babylon, so there were three returns. But most of the people chose to stay by that time in Persia, which had conquered the Babylonians. Why did they choose to stay there? Because they didn't want to obey God and go back to that land and have the difficulties. They were doing better in Persia, so they rebelled against him again. Some people did that, but Esther was one of those people who stayed behind.

You have the Ezra-Nehemiah restoration. Then there's this period of time where you have the birth of the church, which is on the day of Pentecost, and then the kingdom that takes place there. I'm saying all this. Any questions on that? I'm trying to tie the threads together for you to get a coherent picture. I'm giving a lot of history and theology in a short time. Most people don't know this stuff. It's an interesting thing. Very few people know.

Guest (Female): Excuse me, what happened to Esther? Why did she stay there?

Dr. Ken Boa: Esther stayed there. It's an interesting thing because there's nothing about God at all in there. Even when they talk about fasting, there's nothing about prayer whatsoever. There's no revelation from God. So it's an example of how God is not being honored there because the people chose to disobey. Yet God will provide for the Jew in spite of their rebellion even there to show, and that's why the Feast of Purim is a celebration of God's provision for his people in spite of their foolishness and failure to go back. He's not seen, there's no word for him, he's not mentioned, but he's behind the scenes in the background of what takes place.

Let me do it in another way. I'm going to take you at another direction. I have a whole presentation. I may do this for you on the seven feasts of Israel. Have I ever done that for you? It's kind of a fun thing to do. I talked about it. I may want to do that very soon. It's really a picture of the Old Testament in prophecy because you see in the first feasts, which are all in the spring, Passover. It was not an accident that on the very day of Passover its fulfillment was on the death of Christ because that's what it anticipated way back. Then there was a second feast, Unleavened Bread. We have that feast and then the third feast is First Fruits. What happened on First Fruits? Jesus rose from the dead. He's the first fruits of those who sleep. So there is now a resurrected man. There's a butterfly in heaven now, as it were, if you think about it this way.

You're going to become a butterfly. We're all caterpillars. But there is one who is resurrected, and you will be resurrected like him. What you see yourselves then is a glorious thought. Meanwhile, we realize that all these things, First Fruits the resurrection because he rose from the dead you'll rise, and then here's the one I want to call your attention to, Pentecost, which was the birth of the church. That's when Jew and Gentile would wave two loaves before God. The symbolism would turn out to be that the two would become one in Christ. This was a mystery that was not revealed in the Old Covenant that was given to Paul.

The significance to me is that these four spring feasts were fulfilled literally and on the exact day in that manner, and I think it's quite astonishing. Then there's a gap between the spring feasts and the fall feasts. I'll show you this in this way. The spring feasts then have all been fulfilled literally on their day. Yet there remain three fall feasts that have yet to be fulfilled. Those I believe relate to the second advent of our Lord. They relate to the Rosh Hashanah, the return of the people, and they relate to Yom Kippur, the purification of his people. Then third, the whole idea of the feast of Tabernacles, the kingdom period. So they fulfill in that way. It's an interesting thing you have a summer gap between the spring and the fall feasts.

The summer gap began on the day of Pentecost, and that's the gap we're in right now. We're awaiting the time—and God only knows when it will be what year it will be—but I believe that those fall feasts will be fulfilled. Guess what I think? I think they're going to be fulfilled in the same way the first ones were. It would be crazy to think that there would be a spiritual fulfillment on these and not a literal fulfillment. So my view relates to that in this summer gap. Given that, that relates to one's view of the kingdom of Christ and so forth, which I'm not going to go into now, but it's all connected together. So I'm thinking I may do that. It's kind of an enjoyable thing for us to do.

Let me go back to our text and continue. So he says: "For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles, if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace." He was given this gift that he's managing. A steward manages the resources of another. You don't own it. You're going to be held accountable. All of us are stewards. He was given this grace that by revelation there was made known to me this mystery. We didn't know it before. As I wrote before in brief, you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men as it has now been revealed to the holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit.

That is to say that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. That's a radical concept because "I came only for the lost sheep of the house of Israel." It's significant that we have to take this into account. Go to Romans for a minute with me, and if you go to Romans chapter 11, you begin to see that he's not abandoned his people. He hasn't rejected the Jews, ultimately the physical descendants of Israel will have to be purified and purged, but then they will be made into a context in which they will return to him.

"They've killed your prophets." But what's the divine response? "I kept myself 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal." There's come to be at the present time a remnant according to God's gracious choice. He's saying that their transgression, Israel's rejection made it possible for Jesus to go to the rest of the world because they rejected. Remember what did he say? "I've come only for the lost sheep of the house of Israel." What does he say at the end just before he's raised from the dead? What's his Great Commission? What does he tell them to go? Go to Israel? "Go into all the world and make disciples."

Why is that possible? Because Israel's rejection made it possible for you and me to be grafted contrary to nature into the cultivated olive tree that was Israel. Israel has been put on a side for a period of time. But actually he goes on to say, "If somehow I may move to jealousy my fellow countrymen, the Jews, and save some. If their rejection of the gospel is the reconciliation of the world, if that's what led to the fact that the Gentiles could now be part of this great covenant, the New Covenant." "If the first piece of dough is holy, the lump is also. If the root is holy, the branches are too."

But if some of the branches were broken off and you being a wild olive were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree, don't be arrogant toward the branches. Remember that you who support the root—it's not you who support the root, the root supports you. You came from them. You're receiving those covenant blessings. But guess what's going to happen? God's not going to abandon his promises, and he will fulfill it in spite of their disobedience. They were broken off because of their disbelief and you stand by your faith. Don't be conceited but fear. If God didn't spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.

Behold then the kindness and severity of God: to those who fell severity, but to you God's kindness. He says if they don't continue in their belief, they will be grafted in. He's going to graft them back. Here's a key verse for you. If you were cut off, he says by speaking about the Jews, from what is by nature a wild olive tree and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree—if you the Gentiles were cut off and planted into a new place, how much more would the natural people be grafted back into their own tree?

Here's his promise then, "I would that you will not be wise." A partial hardening has happened to Israel because you see in the body of Christ, this mystery the church that didn't exist until Pentecost, both Jews and Gentiles—there's always been Messianic Jews. There's always been Jews since the first century. In fact, initially it was all Jews and then the Gentiles were added. But the point is this, that these people have always been a part of the body of Christ. So there's always been a remnant within us.

A partial hardening has happened, not full, but partial. It's partial and it's temporary. There'll come a time when all Israel will be saved. I believe that the tribulation will actually purge Israel and bring them to repentance, and ultimately they will call upon the name of the Lord and they will be in that Christ will rule and reign. It's my view, and people may disagree, but my own view is that the church, this new mystery, is the body of Christ. It's his bride, and he's going to rule and reign with her in the kingdom that ultimately we will be with him in the reign of Christ in the Messianic Kingdom.

We will rule and reign with him, but the promises given to Israel were not just bait and switch. I thought it looked like it was for the Jews, but I guess it was for the Gentiles, so the church. No, it's actually they will be literally fulfilled, but you and I will be ruling and reigning with him in that time. So he speaks about this. All Israel will be saved. He will remove ungodliness. So from the standpoint of the gospel they're enemies, but from the standpoint of God's choice they're beloved.

Just as you were once disobedient and have now been shown mercy because of their disobedience, the Gentiles, so these also have been disobedient because of the mercy shown to you they may be now shown mercy. God has shut up all in disobedience that he might show mercy to all. The mystery of God's purposes could not be fathomed. That's why he makes this prayer: "Oh, the depths of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and untraceable his ways." You couldn't have guessed this, you couldn't have predicted this, you couldn't have known this.

Go back to our text in Ephesians because they relate directly to this understanding. So the Gentiles are fellow heirs now. They're fellow members, just as Romans 11 says. This grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ and to bring to light what is the stewardship, the administration. The word used here is *oikonomia*. What does that sound like to you? Economy. Where we get the word economy. It's a stewardship or an economy. It's a way of managing a household. The way God's working now is different than the way it formerly was.

Before it was in his process with the people of Israel. He's now doing a new thing and he's bringing out in this mystery which in the ages in the past had been hidden in God so that this wisdom that was there might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. So it is now the bride of Christ who is a manifestation of the unity of both Jew and Gentile in one body. But ultimately she will rule and reign with Messiah when he comes and she will come with him to come and rule and reign with him.

So that's a picture that we see. This purpose that he carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in him. So I ask you not to lose heart at my tribulations on your behalf, because these are your glory. It's a remarkable picture. Let me see what questions you might have about this so far. Is it making any sense or any questions of clarification?

Guest (Female): It's a proper thing to ask what will it happen to the Gentiles if the Jews obeyed?

Dr. Ken Boa: It's a great question. It would have been then that he would have gone only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and the only Gentiles who would become saved would be proselytes to Judaism. So it would not have been—it would have been ill for the world as a whole. God had a plan which was never known in the Old Covenant. Nobody guessed that Pentecost symbolized the union of Jew and Gentile in one body. It was a new thing that was not known, but behind all that it was the basis for God's purposes which are bigger than you could have guessed. That's why he says: "Oh, the depth of the riches, both of his unfathomable riches." That he would shut up all in disobedience so that all would come to salvation. It's a mystery that couldn't have been guessed at the time, but we can look back.

Remember the old is in the new revealed, the new is in the old concealed. It was there all along, but you couldn't see it because there were some things that would not be revealed. Give you another mystery, 1 Corinthians 15: "Behold, I tell you a mystery: we shall not all sleep, but we will all be changed in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet." What does he mean here? Not all people will die. Up until now that's been true, except with only two exceptions that one out of one dies. I think it was George Bernard Shaw who put it this way: "The statistics are impressive. One out of one dies." You can be guaranteeing it. It's just a question of time.

That's why I found it strange when the tsunami when 300,000 people died in one day. Where was God when this happened? Well, the average is 30,000. One day it happened to be 300,000, but in the end it was still the same. That didn't change the stats, one out of one dies. If you have a thin enough faith that you don't grasp that that's the case, you're not thinking this one through. The reality is that we are terminal, that God gives life and takes it away. But he's offering us a new form of life, an eternal life that will last forever.

This concept of how God has mysteries that are going on and that his purpose—so that there actually means that there will be some who will never see physical death. This is 1 Corinthians, 1 Thessalonians chapter four, which is one of my favorite texts and I use this a good deal because I don't want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep. What does that mean? Sleep is a euphemism of death. So that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. I use this every time I do a funeral or I share the good news to comfort people who've lost someone, a loved one.

You won't be grieving as the rest. You'll grieve, but not as the same. It's not a grief of despair. It is their gain is the perspective. If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will not precede those who have fallen asleep. But the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Then it goes on to say, then we who are alive and remain—what'll happen to them? Caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. This isn't the second coming. He comes down with us. This is a different thing. We're going up to him. He's not coming down to the earth. We're meeting him. This is him meeting his bride, and so the whole idea of those people who actually are alive at that time would not see physical death, and that's why he means this: "We who are alive and remain will be caught up." And so we'll always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.

We have words of comfort because we have perspective. So when we have—if a believer goes into the presence of the Lord, it is their gain, not their diminishment. But ultimately though they will be back in resurrected life, and we will see them again. Imagine what you'll be like then. You won't even recognize each other. You'll be so glorious. How can you compare a caterpillar with a butterfly? If you didn't know about the whole process, you'd never dream that that thing which liquefies in the cocoon would actually become something that would actually become glorious and a whole new body plan would emerge from that goo.

In nature we have an illustration of how it was a kind of a death, burial, and resurrection, and this leaf-munching curiosity and a wonderful and strange, but at the same time, he's the same DNA liquefies and then an entirely new body plan emerges from that goo. Nobody knows how. It is a DNA goo, and then it reconstitutes itself. How does this happen? Out of the goo that he reconstitutes an entirely new body plan out of that DNA that didn't exist before. That's no longer a leaf-munching wonder, but rather even better than that, nectar-drinking flying beauty.

It's astonishing how all these things in nature, in my view, point beyond. That's why I love nature because the more you learn about the natural world, you're going to learn spiritual truths. I'm suggesting here that we have these analogies that there will be that resurrection, and it's a wonderful process and promise that we've been granted. So I go back to our text in Ephesians chapter three.

Guest (Female): Oh yes, talk about Jesus's resurrected body. Because they did recognize his body, but he could walk through the doors, he could appear where he wanted to be.

Dr. Ken Boa: This is from my book *God, I Don't Understand*. This is the second edition of it now. I'm talking about here how the resurrected body of Christ is substantial and glorified. It's recognizable, they could recognize, but it was a different kind of a body. Our body, according to 1 Corinthians 15, will be a spiritual body, but consist of glorified flesh. You have a natural body right now, you're going to have a spiritual body then.

But you're not to just be pure spirit. You're going to be more than that because Christ rose from the dead and there's a man in heaven, therefore you will rise from the dead and you will actually become. So we're all bunch of caterpillars going to wait to see each other as butterflies and wait till you see each other then. You're going to be glorious, beautiful, wonderful, and it'll go further up and further in.

There's no question in my mind, because Paul actually says, "Who is our hope at the coming of Christ? What is our reward? Is it not you? You are our joy and our crown." He is saying that part of his reward are the people that he invested in. He'll see them again. Well, that wouldn't mean anything if they didn't recognize each other. So they're going to know each other. You're going to know each other, but you're going to also recognize millions of other people that you've never met before, and each one will be unique.

Guest (Female): Well and the Mount of Transfiguration where they were with Jesus and recognized one another?

Dr. Ken Boa: How did they know that was Moses and that was Elijah? They didn't have "Hello, my name is Moses" on their transfiguration. They knew it was them. No, somehow you're going to know. I don't know what that'll mean for people we've not yet met, but there's going to be millions and millions of people that you've not yet met that will be so united with you in the resurrected glory that'll be even greater than you've known in people in this life. So it'll continue with the people we've known, but new people we haven't met before. Each one will be unique.

I'm trying to amplify people's imagination so that they have a greater aspiration for home, a greater desire because you are right now in a tragedy. It's a death-filled world, and there's no hope unless there's another act. This is what we're talking about here and the whole theme, all these ideas about the future feasts and the coming of Christ and all those things are there because the story's not over. The play is going to be completed and it's going to be a comedy, not a tragedy.

Guest (Male): It talks about us pilgrims.

Dr. Ken Boa: That highlights the fact that you and I are pilgrims, but we see each other then. Then you will be substantial. Right now, just think about a body that's perfect and in so many ways you can move instantly from place to place. He's got stories, things for you that are beyond your imagination. But right now, this is who we are. So I use it this way with these gems with metaphorical facets. That's you. That's you.

All these are metaphors for your life. You are in this world a pilgrim. Each of these terms is slightly different from the other. If you put them together, this is the idea of our next life, of our work in this world. The idea of that is a gem that has facets, and to be a sojourner, to be an alien, to be an exile, to be a stranger, a wayfarer, a wanderer, tenant—that's our position.

Therefore, if you're smart, you're going to realize that you're going to treat the temporal as it is—temporal, passing away, ephemeral—and the eternal for what it is. It's going to last, it's going to endure. Remember when Paul says, "I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory to be revealed." The suffering is there, but even there your sorrow will be turned into joy. This is a picture that's radical in its implications if we could just begin to imagine what that'll be like. Right now then we're not home yet, but we will be home.

Guest (Female): I just think it's so cool sometimes to remember what it is to go to a funeral and you have relatives and friends that you haven't seen in forever and the joy. Oh, I can't believe that I haven't seen you in so long!

Dr. Ken Boa: At a funeral, so you've seen people you haven't seen in years and there's a kind of a reuniting that takes place in that. It's an example of the joy that's going to be so far surpassed. It'll be so far surpassed. So what you should do and this is what I've been doing now—and I'll stop with this—because if I think about what I'm now trying to teach Karen about this and myself about heaven, for example, I think about this whole idea or take the greatest joys of now. I have to repeat myself a lot because I have to remember myself. I forget. It's easy.

So what I'm trying to do—and I did it again I've been doing it each night with Karen—I take some memory from the past. So I always ask before Karen goes to sleep, after I have her recite these four truths about the pilgrim way, and the four truths are: renovation requires wreckage, God redeems what he allows in spite of the pains of this world, and you're not defined by the pain of your past but by the joy of your future which is unbound and the best is yet to come.

If that's true, I then ask her, "Okay, Karen, give me a memory." And she gave me one last night that I had not even thought about when she used to go to Cape May when she was a little girl and she used to like to make her little castles and little buildings. I can imagine her being there. So I kind of thought about that. Here's what's happening. That's not the thing itself, it's a pointer to a greater good. They're patches of Godlight. Those patches of Godlight are these: what was the greatest moment of beauty you've ever known?

It's a healthy thing for you to do this. Try this out. What was the most intimate experience you've known? What was the most wonderful adventure that was so rich you wish it would never stop? Now what I'm suggesting to you, those patches of beauty, intimacy, and adventure are hints of better goods you cannot yet name. You don't have the capacity. Only a resurrected mind could, but I can promise you that those hints, it'll be more than worth it in the end. So those are hints of resurrected glory to come. The best things you've ever known in this world are not the thing itself, but rather hints of better goods you cannot yet name. But I promise you, you won't be disappointed.

It's this mindset, this perspective that I embrace. When you see Jesus—this is the best picture I've ever seen. This is where a kid hears for the first time his hearing aid was implanted. Fear and wonder. When you see Jesus, "If I'd only known." It reminds me of this thing I use from *The Magician's Nephew*, the last—this is the creation narrative in the *Chronicles of Narnia*. This cabby sees this wonderful thing where the stars all appear at once and there's a voice that sings them into being.

The cabby said, "Glory be! I'd have been a better man all my life if I'd known there were things like this." Do you see what I'm trying to say? I'm trying to enhance your imagination so you can recognize. If I'd only known. Now is the time to consider. What'll it be like to have no downward gravity of the world, the flesh, and the devil? No more death, sickness, mourning, crying, and pain. Imagine that. Then the positive things: what'll it be like to be in a cosmic butterfly, to be a resurrected person in a resurrected cosmos with a gardening mystery of the new creation? Everything you wish to do will be what he would want for you because you will have been purified at the judgment seat of Christ.

It's a wonderful thought. Your relational capacity will be boundless, and you'll be able to have relationships with people in ways you can't even begin to imagine. It's going to go further up and further in. You're going to go higher and higher. It's never going to be boring, I can promise you that. So I'm leaving you with those what I hope are comforting images for you to walk in hope because the best is yet to come. Let's close in a prayer.

Father, we thank you that you have promised greatness and glory and goodness, that all these things are yours, that you've called us to stand before you in your presence so that we would be amazed by your glory and beauty and that you will be transforming us into the image of your Son. I pray that we would live in the light of what's to come and the light of the future you're preparing for us in this present darkness. In Jesus' name, amen.