Wellington Boone Live, Telling It Like It Is in a Day of Change–Training for Eternity That Starts Now
Peter didn't know that the Lord would give him an assignment after He gave His life on the cross and was resurrected, but He did. Jesus came back to Peter and said, "OK. I need you and the other apostles to keep on doing this for the rest of your life. I'm out of here, but I want you guys to go into all the world and preach the Gospel. If you are obedient and totally depend on God, you will be successful."
The Bible says in Deuteronomy 8:18 that God gives us power to get wealth to establish his kingdom in the earth. He gives you the creative ability to make money come to you for the cause of God, but the issue is not the money. The issue is your vision and purpose for it. God sees if you can be trusted. As you grow in Christ-likeness, ask God to give you a vision for something at the level where you've been born.
Jesus' name is the greatest name, that name above every name, at that name every knee shall bow and every tongue must confess, both in this world and in the world to come. Jesus is a role model for every man.
After you are saved, your next issue is destiny. What did God make you for? You need to have confidence that God is working through you. You were made to live forever. You are preparing now for your placement in the next world. How close are you to God now? How close will you be then? Eternity training brings your behavior in line for eternal life and eternal living.
Jesus said, “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3 KJV). Prayer with a focus on knowing Jesus is prayer focused on fulfilling your destiny, not on meeting your needs. Death to the flesh is a daily choice. You choose to be crucified with Christ so that you can have a new life.
In the family, the Bible says, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church, and then he adds, “and gave Himself for it.” The husband’s role is not to dominate his wife. His role is to give himself to her so that he can earn the opportunity to be like God to her. God made the woman out of the man. Together, the two of them became one image of what God looks like. That is amazing stuff. Paul calls it a mystery because it has to be unveiled. You have to see it from the eternal perspective.
The Bible makes a case for the family name to stay in the earth through the son. That’s a sovereign issue. Every person conceived in the womb, whether male or female, relates to God’s sovereignty but the Bible places an emphasis on a son. That is because in creative order God created the man first and then He made the woman from the man. That was a priority in the eyes of God. It doesn’t mean that the man has greater value. It simply means that in His sovereignty God determined that this would be the order of His creation. Genesis 5:2 says that God “called their name Adam.” When a couple gets married, the preacher says at the end of the ceremony, “Ladies and gentlemen, I now present to you, Mr. and Mrs. Wellington Boone.” The two have become one with the surname of Boone.
Isaiah prophesied about John the Baptist when he said, “Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain” (Isaiah 40:4 KJV). When you interpret that on an eternal level, you can say that Jesus came to straighten out crooks. That is everyone who is crooked on the inside in their mentality. They are not walking on the straight and narrow. We all need to fix things inside that we have been getting wrong. It could be the way that we handle money. It could be the way that we handle relationships.
I served in Vietnam in 1968 and after I was discharged I moved to Baltimore. My friend was a CPA and we both had apartments in one of those high rises. When we got together, we’d be profiling and listening to jazz, even though I don’t like jazz, smoking marijuana and getting high. We’d say, “Ummm, that’s killer!” We would be talking about philosophy or something and then after about the third hit I would get confused and say, “What was I saying?” I was losing my memory while I was getting high.
I heard a former U.S. President’s wife, who claims to be a Christian, make a statement about this present President. She said, “I will never forgive him.” However, the basic premise for access to God and conversion to Christ is forgiveness. The reason for her unforgiveness was something that this present President said concerning her daughters and her husband that put her children in danger. However, she didn’t realize that what she said had eternal implications.
