Five Things You Need to Know Today to Get Through the Five Things You Need to Know for Today

I reach in the darkness, tap the snooze button, and close my eyes hoping 9 more minutes will make a difference. If I’m to start my day in the best way possible, after 9 minutes I will immediately open my heart and mind to prayer and sink my teeth into the Word. If I’m to start my day in a less than best way possible, after 9 minutes I will tap the screen on my phone and immediately open my heart and mind to the world, reading the words in the headlines which often start like this, “Five things you need to know for” such and such day. The things I need to know to start my day, if in fact, I want to start if off quite miserably. Actually, if you are interested, I can save you a click and give you the five things now…covid, Ukraine, inflation, extreme weather somewhere, and alas, the Kardashian-Wests. Sometimes the order gets switched up, but yeah, that’s pretty much the list.

The five things I need to know…nine more snooze minutes are sounding like a solid choice…

I offer five alternative things to know, to combat the feelings that may overwhelm you after reading the daily news.

Jesus loves you.

Like He really loves you, all of you. Can we just sit here for a moment? Jesus’s love is free to you, but it wasn’t free for Him. It cost Him His life. His love is steadfast, it never waivers. He doesn’t love you less today than He did yesterday, and He’ll love you the same tomorrow. His love is vast, deeper and higher and longer than we can imagine. Paul offers a prayer to the church in Ephesus, “I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge” (Ephesians 3:18-19 NIV). Jesus loves you so much it reaches past your understanding (and mine too). Jesus’s love for you isn’t a “like” kinda, smiley-face kinda love. It’s a close up, I’m going to hold your beautiful face in my hands and wait until you’re brave to look up at me kind of love. Jesus loves you.

God is sovereign.

Sovereign meaning, He’s in control. He was in control yesterday and He will be in control tomorrow. It may not appear to be this way, but He is. I’ve heard this before – why would a good God let all of these bad things happen? Maybe I’ve asked the question before myself. If He is in control, why does everything appear to be so out of control? Well, God loves you so much He sacrificed His Son to purchase your freedom. But, He regards your freedom so highly that He won’t sacrifice your own freewill and force His love on you. Meaning, humans can choose to do what they want. If you take a look around, there is evidence we haven’t chosen very well, hence chaos. If you’d like to see the cause and effect of not choosing well, take a minute and read through Proverbs 28. Solomon in all his wisdom sums it up, drafting our current version of headline news circa 700 B.C. How is this something to help steady your morning, pre-caffinated feet? Let’s look at Joseph speaking to his brothers in Genesis 50. “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (Genesis 50:20 NIV). And in Romans 8:28 (NIV), “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” All things, did you catch that? All things, even the bad things, will be worked out for your good and His glory.

The day is beginning to look a tad better.

God has a plan.

Let’s recap. He loves you. He’s in control. And even better, He has a plan (a good one). Job states it perfectly, “I know that You can do all things; no plan of Yours can be thwarted” (Job 42:2 NIV). There is a reason our world today is reflected in the ancient writings of Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. God has a plan and He is on course to complete it. It doesn’t change based on the circumstances. There are no adjustments, no rework. There are parts of the plan that are unsettling. There are parts of the Bible that invoke fear, but there is an ending that will blow you away, with a celestial city and no more tears, no more bad stuff. There will be no more anxiety inducing headlines, and no need for the snooze button.

Why can we not skip right to the celestial ending? Peters tells us, “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the LORD a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The LORD is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:8-9). He’s waiting and waiting for all of His free-willed children to come to salvation. He’s waiting for the full measure of His patience to run its course. Take a look at Abraham’s bartering with God in the book of Genesis as he pleads for Sodom (Genesis 18). Abraham starts the bidding at 50 righteous people. If there are 50 righteous people, would God be willing to spare Sodom? Yes, for 50 righteous people, God would spare Sodom. Abraham gets Him down to 10 righteous people. For 10 righteous people, would God spare Sodom? “He answered, ‘For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it'” (Genesis 18:32 NIV). Then God proceeds to remove Lot and his family from the city, and He annihilates the city. God would have endured the “great outcry against the city, and their grievous sin” [Genesis 18:20] a little longer had He been able to find 10 righteous people. Jesus reiterates this in John 6 when He says, “And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that He has given me” (John 6:39 NIV). Jesus will spare the city if there is one righteous person to be found, one. I don’t know about you, but at least for me, I was hardly righteous when Jesus found me. I’m thankful His patience stretches as far as His love. So I’ll wait and look forward to a celestial city where a King of Glory reigns without tears and bad things.

God has a purpose for you.

You are part of His plan. Paul writes in his letter to the church in Ephesus, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10 NIV). For whatever reason, in His love, His sovereignty and in His plan, He chooses humans (i.e., us) to do the work that needs to be done in order that not one who has been given to Jesus Christ will be lost. Jesus ascended into heaven and left the gospel with several dozen men and women, a small house church if you will. A gospel destined to go to the ends of the earth was left in the hands of a few men and women. Men and women who traveled by foot and prepared paper copies on handmade parchment.

If heaven is so great, why do we not choose to die? Why do we keep pressing forward in this race amidst the chaos? Because the gospel is a boots on the ground kind of work. (Why else would Jesus walk His human feet in the dust?) It advances not with earthly weapons, but with earthly hands and feet. It advances with our hands and feet. Someone else’s salvation is dependent upon your obedience to the good works God has prepared in advance for you (eeks and eeks). Someone else’s salvation is dependent on your hands and feet. Imagine if Paul would have encountered Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus and then turned around and went home, pretending like it had never happened? You have a purpose for such a time and place as this. You matter.

Lastly, in case the purpose part has set an uneasiness in the pit of your tummy.

God is your provision.

God does not set us on our path without provisioning us, and He certainly does not leave us while we are on it. Those good works prepared for us in advance, they actually cannot be done on our own strength, or our own talent or by our own means. In order to accomplish those good works, we’re going to have to depend on God’s provision (in my experience, we’ll have to depend on Him a lot, more than we’re comfortable with). Now how is this good news? He loves to show up, He loves to provide for us. I think He likes to show off a little. It turns our eyes, hearts, minds, and ears to Him. He loves to wow us.

Uncomfortable? Sometimes. Difficult? Oftentimes. Then why does He hand out assignments that we cannot do on our own? Because we can do them when partnered with Him, and when we let the Holy Spirit lead. Let’s go back to Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus. “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the power at work within us” (Ephesians 3:20 ESV). Did you get that? He intends to do more than imaginable through us. It’s our faith in His faithfulness that He is after. We move in obedience, He provides.

Is this not the best news?

Five things, five true things to redirect your mind after being bombarded with the morning headlines. Five things in less than 9 minutes.

“I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” – Jesus Christ (John 16:33 NIV)