Okay, it’s an overused pun, but what better title for the closing article for our Living Word theme than this?
Have you ever met anyone who always has to have the last word? These individuals are a bit pushy at best, downright controlling at worst. They tend to be opinionated, talk too much, put themselves in situations that aren’t really their business, and then they tidily wrap up everyone’s problems with their solution tape and walk away. I can just see these people wiping their hands with a satisfied smile, proud to have the job done.
Obviously, we need people like this in our lives or not much would get accomplished, so I’m glad God gave us personalities like that, though they need sanctification as we all do. I’m glad because they reflect His image, too, because He is the Final Word. He gets things done, too.
But more than being the End, He’s also the Beginning: the Alpha—the first Word, and the Omega—the last Word (Revelation 22:13). He’s the A to Z and everything in between.
At the beginning of this season on the Living Word, we considered how God spoke to us in giving us His Son, the Word made flesh (see John 1:14). In this bodily form He spoke to us his final Word on who He is and what His desire is for relationship with us for eternity (see Hebrews 1:1-2).
His final plan: to conclude all this mess we’ve made with our sin and rebellion against Him. How? By redeeming us once and for all by the blood of His Son with a decisive end to the mess and a glorious new beginning.
As summer closes out and makes way for fall, we are reminded, as we are with all the little beginnings and endings, that there is something beautiful about beginnings, endings, and everything in between. Why is that?
Because He’s the Author of it all: the good and the bad, the painful and the joyful, the despairing and the hopeful. All is worked out for His good and final purposes in the end (see Romans 8:28).
I have family members right now who are struggling with their breaking down, sin-cursed bodies. Every possible treatment has been applied and tried, and maybe some more still will be tried, but after all of that, the end will still come. Death has its grip on us, but it’s not a final one for those in Christ.
Take courage today, sister, in the One who will have the Final Word in the End, and yet…it will just be the beginning.
He’s the One who says: Behold, I make all things new. And…Surely, I am coming soon” (see Revelation 21:5; 22:20).
Amen, come soon, Lord Jesus!
