{"id":21386,"date":"2017-05-15T00:10:50","date_gmt":"2017-05-15T07:10:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lccredding.com\/lcc\/?p=10795"},"modified":"2017-05-15T00:10:50","modified_gmt":"2017-05-15T07:10:50","slug":"may-15-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/2017\/05\/15\/may-15-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"May 15, 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\u201c\u2026Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.\u201d<\/em> John 20:29b<\/span><\/p>\n

What Chapter Are You On?<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

In my office, we often share books with one another. \u201cOh, have you read such-and-such?\u201d \u201cNo. May I borrow it?\u201d Then ensues several weeks of asking, \u201cWhat chapter are you on?\u201d We want to know if they got to that really good part yet\u2026. Sometimes someone will lose interest in a book and lay it down, never to pick it up again. Then we want to say, \u201cBut you never got to the good part! It\u2019s coming, I promise!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

If a reader stops short of reading to the end of the book, they will not know how it all turns out. This is a simple illustration of hanging in there until the end. The same goes for movie-watching\u2014if you walk out before it\u2019s over, you\u2019ll never know how it ends.<\/span><\/p>\n

As we finished up the Book of Ruth at church, we can see that Ruth\u2019s is a life of four chapters, so to speak. God told the basics of her life in just four chapters.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Chapter one: The parts, some good and some bad, that lead up to her following God.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Chapter two: The part where she steps into the beginning of her future, though she didn\u2019t realize it\u2014she meets the person who will change everything.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Chapter three: The part where her future is secured. Note that the outcome was out of her hands; she just played the little part she was given.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chapter four: Redemption. Marriage. Inheritance. Restoration. Descendants. Fulfilled prophecy. Formerly unimagined benefits of love, nurture, provision and a future.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps God put Ruth\u2019s four-chapter life into the Bible to give us hope for the chapters of our own lives. Whether you are in an early chapter or the last chapter, there is a \u201cnext\u201d chapter that says something\u2019s coming (even if the chapter is eternity, the beginning of a whole new book). He has a plan, and it\u2019s good. Don\u2019t back out; don\u2019t retreat; don\u2019t close your eyes. Watch, and wait, and always, always hope in the goodness of our Lord.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not over until it\u2019s, you know, OVER. If you\u2019re still breathing, it\u2019s not over. And the most beautiful part is that if it\u2019s over on earth, it\u2019s just beginning in eternity.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBlessed Redeemer, Your precious Word of promise gives us the hope we need. We know You have good things planned for us. In whatever chapter we are (You know which it is, Lord), teach us to wait and watch for what You are doing. In Jesus\u2019 Name, Amen.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201c\u2026Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.\u201d John 20:29b What Chapter Are You On? In my […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-women"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p92wjD-5yW","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21386\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}