All Good Things Don't Come To An End

All good things must come to an end.

Have you ever heard that before?  Maybe you've even repeated it on occasion. Probably when something good was coming to an end.

I actually grieve when my favorite TV series come to an end.  When I watched the finale of the Office the first time, I actually cried.  Yeah, I know.  I am a wuss.  I also probably cry every time I've watched it since.  Probably.  

I remember once my wife and I ate dinner at this really fancy restaurant with some friends on New Year's Eve.  It was one of those meals where they kept bringing out course after course--every one of them looking as if they were prepared on Food Network for one of those cooking contests.  None of us wanted that dinner to end.  And we sort of grieved when it did.

All good things must come to an end... 

That's what we tell ourselves, isn't it?

But what if I told you that there are some things that don't come to an end?  And that this one thing assured that all of the really good things didn't have to come to an end either...  What would you say to that?

Check out this verse from the book of Lamentations in the Bible...

Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed,    for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Another way to translate that verse is "his mercies--his lovingkindness---never come to an end... they are renewed every morning."

How good does that sound?  It sounds awesome is the right answer to that question, and yet far too many of us seem to read something altogether different into the text.

What we read is something more like this:  "The wrath of God never comes to an end... it is renewed every morning..."

Now that doesn't sound all that awesome does it?  The right answer is no, in case you were wondering. 

So why do so many of us live like that's what the Bible says? 

I mean if you listen to the sermons that are being preached across America today in countless churches all over the landscape you would think that God is angry... that God is vengeful... that God's wrath is renewed against us each and every morning.

Come on.  I know you've heard people say things like this.  There seem to be so many more of them saying things like that lately.  

But that's not even close to what the Bible says, is it?  

The God that is really revealed in the Bible--when you actually read it instead of just quoting random verses from it--is a God whose mercy, whose lovingkindness, whose faithfulness... never ends, never runs out, never goes away.

Listen...  There is a difference between what lasts forever and what doesn't.  And figuring this out can make all the difference in your life. 

"All good things come from God," the Apostle Paul wrote.  If all good things come from God, and God's lovingkindness, mercy, and love never end---then doesn't it stand to reason that all of the really good things, the eternal things, the things that matter... will also never end?

You have a choice.  You can live focusing on how all the good things in life come to an end.  Or you can live focusing on how all the best things in life last forever.

Right about now, we need some of this kind of gratitude-based, hopeful, positivity in our lives, am I right?  And it's all within our power because we can choose to focus on the things that won't last or we can go all-in with the things that will.  

May you make the right choice today and every day forward.  And may the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you now and always. Amen.