Revelation 21:5-7 He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Then he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true." He said to me: "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son."

The gig is up! What confidence we can have... The end of the story is disclosed. The book of Revelation is such an encouraging book! God's kingdom is permanantly established and everything is made new (all creation has been corrupted by sin and requires God to create it anew - from us being new creations in Christ to the earth being renewed or remade). How much suspense is there in watching a football game on video tape when you've seen the final score on the internet? Not a lot. In the same way, there is no suspense as to who will win and who will lose in the final conflict. This gives us great confidence in life. Evil and wrong will NOT ulitimately prevail - although this is easy to forget. We have here the definitive good ending to the supreme story.

What makes me happy? I found myself this morning (on the way to work, of course!) thinking about a weekend gone and another work week starting and found myself slipping into subtle depression. God in his goodness reminded me of the necessity of finding my joy in God. The conversation went something like this...

"So, your job is not your dream job. Very few people's jobs are. Where do you find your joy?"

"Well, I guess I am supposed to find it in You."

"If you're unhappy now, where would you find joy in the middle of a trial?"

Whether this was a Biblically informed subconscious conversation with myself or God's spirit talking with me, I don't know. I do know that the idea that was impressed on me was that wherever I am in my life, I can and must find my joy in Christ. That means if I am walking through trial, I can be joyful. If I am experiencing abundance, my joy must still be found in Christ. Then, if all the things I am blessed with disappear, I have lost nothing. If (for me) I struggle with my day to day job, I must find my joy in Christ. The thought that another job might bring me joy is simply a wrong and sinful thought. If Christ is not my joy now, he will not be my joy even if my job were to become that elusive "dream job." Not profound thoughts, but a necessary rediretion for my soul.

1 Peter 1:5-9 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.
The process of growing to become more like Jesus Christ includes adding all the above attributes into our lives. From the moment of salvation we are a new person that is being changed to be more like our Saviour. The last verse really jumped out at me. If anyone doesn't have these attributes, are they Christians? Yes, but they have forgotten thing that should be motivating their transformation into Christ's image. Namely, the gospel. So we find that the gospel is more than the gospel of salvation, it works transformation. If we don't have the above works of the Spirit in our lives we may be saved from hell, but we rob ourselves of the privilege of having and effective and productive life on earth.