A Preview of Coming Attractions

For we did not follow cleverly concocted fables when we made known to you the power and return of our Lord Jesus Christ; no, we were eyewitnesses of his grandeur. For he received honor and glory from God the Father, when that voice was conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory: "This is my dear Son, in whom I am delighted." When this voice was conveyed from heaven, we ourselves heard it, for we were with him on the holy mountain.   2Pe 1:16-18 NET

Before a movie comes out, the studio releases a preview of coming attractions so that people will get excited and want to go see it. In fact, they hope that we will get so excited that we will talk to our friends about it and all go see it. They hope we will post on social media about how we are going to go see it, and often, we do!

Thousands of years ago, Jesus walked the earth with His disciples. He told them often about the kingdom of heaven, but they never quite seemed to get it. So one day, Jesus gave a few of them a little preview of coming attractions. He took Peter, James and John up a high mountain by themselves and while they were there He was “transfigured.” That’s a pretty fancy word that simply means “changed in form” according to Webster. The Bible says, “His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.” Then a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” I like how one commentator I read, David Guzik, put it, “One may say that this shining glory was not a new miracle, but a pause in an ongoing miracle. The real miracle was that Jesus, most of the time, could keep from displaying His glory.” You can read more about the transfiguration in Matthew 17.

In yesterday’s passage, Peter told us that he would remind us over and over again of God’s promises and the qualities we are to pursue in this life. Just after this, in today’s passage, he is reminding us of this amazing event that he got to witness. So why was this so important to him to share with us now? I think he wanted us to grasp the reason why we do what we do as Christians.

Our salvation is by grace through faith. There is nothing we can do to earn it and nothing we need to do to keep it. We cannot mess it up or lose it anymore than we can gain it of ourselves to begin with. That said, there are ways to make the most of our time on this earth. We should long to meet our Savior in heaven and hear Him say to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Some days it is hard to do though, and we need a reason. We need something to hold on to, something to look forward to. So, Peter reminds us.

Here's the Thing: As if we needed any more clarification, God Himself told us to listen to Jesus. Peter reminded us of what we should be about, then he reminded us of why we should be about it.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

At least it's not bad news

Image
  Radical tumor removal is not always possible because of the critical brainstem or diencephalic locations of some tumors. Tumor progression and eventual death are likely in such patients. Stereotactic radiosurgery for pilocytic astrocytomas part 1: outcomes in adult patients Kano et. al.  So my posts are usually preceded by a scripture verse, often an encouraging one. Today I needed to give you an insight into what I've been experiencing. From the time I was diagnosed with a brain tumor, about a year and a half ago, I was reassured that it was a "WHO grade 1 benign" tumor. I, mistakenly, took this to mean that it wasn't a big deal. Even when I was told in June that it had grown "slightly," I thought that meant they'd zap it with radiation and that'd be the end of it. Guess what, I was wrong. When my June MRI revealed growth, I was referred to the Tumor Center for treatment. Fearing a long, drawn-out process, I was relieved when they scheduled all my...
Read more

The Next Crazy Thing

Image
Buckle in! This is a processing post so it is likely to be long and wordy and emotional and probably flawed in many ways. I thank you for your patience and anyone who makes it to the end gets bonus points in my book 😏.  Let's start with the info. I've been having progressively more intense, more frequent, and longer lasting migraines. Since my eye surgery in May, I've also been experiencing a great deal of nausea, almost daily. Sometimes meds help (with either), sometimes they don't. In addition, since the eye surgery, my double vision has intensified. My depth perception is shot, I'm regularly missing things I grab for, mistaking curbs for cracks in the sidewalk, bumping into walls or counters. Those are the three things that neurosurgery told us to watch for with regards to the shunt functioning properly: headaches, nausea, and vision changes. Now the vision changes were probably because of the surgery and the nausea was probably  because of the migraines, but th...
Read more

When "Wait and See" Wouldn't Sound so Bad

Image
    Ten days after I received the call letting me know that they found something on the MRI I was sitting in the office of a Neurosurgeon.  I have no doubt that God orchestrated the circumstances that had brought me there, including a friend who is also dealing with a brain tumor recommending this clinic. But how could any of this be real? Only a couple of people knew what was going on, but there wasn't much to know before this appointment. All we had were a few key phrases on the MRI Study Result and our dear friend, Dr. Google.  I went into the appointment with the impression that the doctor would either recommend watching and waiting, doing another MRI in six months and seeing if anything changed, or taking it out right away.  In previous encounters where the option was to wait or do something I have vastly preferred doing something, but this time it was different. I had read about the potential complications of surgery and I was scared.  Not to men...
Read more