A Visit from Your Past Self?
Ron Mallett is an astrophysicist who has dedicated much of his adult life to the notion that time travel is possible. He’s the real-life modern-day version of Doc Brown from Back to the Future.
I don’t know if time travel is possible, but what if I were to tell you that you could go back in time and give your past self one message?
What if I were to guarantee you that it was completely safe, tested and tried and that today you could travel 10 years into the past, to the year 2010, and deliver one message to your past self?
Would you go and, if so, what message would you give yourself?
My guess is that some of you would say… invest in Apple! The iPad is going to take off! Some of you might give yourself relationship advice. Who to date, who not to date. Who to become friends with, who you might should avoid.
Some of you might give yourself work advice. What you wished you would have done differently over the past decade that might have helped your career if you had only known. Some of you would tell yourself, don’t put too much hope in the Cowboys winning a Super Bowl this decade. It’s not going to happen!
A Visit from Your Future Self?
Now imagine that today, you’re getting a visit from your future self. Except it’s not a visit from the year 2030. It’s not 10 years in the future. It’s the year 2120. You’re getting a visit from yourself from 100 years in the future.
What message would you get from yourself from 100 years in the future? What’s going to matter 100 years from today?
What’s going to make all the difference for you not just in 10 years, not just over the next decade, but over the next 100 years? Over the next century!
My guess is that if you were to get a visit from yourself from 100 years in the future that your future self would come back and give you one simple yet profound message…
SURRENDER your life to the way of Jesus.
Your 3 Choices:
You see, you really only have 3 choices. They are the same 3 choices that these people that came to Jesus asking about why his disciples were celebrating and not fasting had in Luke.
OPTION 1: You can stick with your old ways.
You can keep doing what you’re doing. You don’t have to change anything. These people who approached Jesus with their questions… they didn’t have to change anything. They could keep doing what they had always done. They could keep up with their traditions. They didn’t have to join Jesus. They didn’t have to believe in Him or become His followers. They could keep doing what they had always done.
And so can you. Just because it’s a new year doesn’t mean anything has to change for you. You can absolutely stay the same. You have that option. And some of you will probably do that. Some of you will default to that. You can stick to your old ways.
OPTION 2: You can stick with your old ways and try to superimpose the new way of Jesus on top of them.
You can do things the way you’ve always done things, and you can try to superimpose the way of Jesus on your old life. Tons of people try to do this. They live their life the way they want to live their life and they show up at church on Sunday. They do whatever they want to do and they pray when things don’t work out. They spend their money and their time however they want and they give to God when they have extra and when it’s convenient. You can stick with your old ways and superimpose the way of Jesus on top.
Warning… Jesus talked about this. It’s kind of like putting a new patch on old clothes, like putting the new way of Jesus on your tried and failed way of living. It’s not going to work. But millions of people do this every day. It looks a little like a Christian life, but it’s not.
And then there’s…
OPTION 3: You can surrender your life to Jesus and enter into an entirely new way of living.
Most people will choose option 1 or option 2. People prefer those options because they’re easier. Because they can keep living their life the way they want. They can rationalize their behavior and give themselves permission not to change.
But make no mistake about it, Jesus is calling you to OPTION 3.
Jesus is calling you change. To something New. To something different. To SURRENDER. To follow.
What will really matter in 100 years?
If you were to receive a message from yourself 100 years in the future, I would bet a million dollars that your future self would tell you to go all-in with God! To join the new way of Jesus! That your future self would tell you.. trust God. Whatever happens next, trust God.
Some of you would give your past self that message knowing that over the next 10 years of your life you would face cancer. Knowing that over the next 20 years you would lose someone you love.
Some of you would want to tell your past self not to lose hope, not to give up on God, even though you know that there is going to be tremendous difficulty coming your way when it comes to your kids, or your marriage, or your work.
You could have given your past self any message, but the one message, the one thing that matters most, is this…
The only way to find your life is to surrender your life to Jesus.
Aslan
In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, written by C.S. Lewis, Lucy, Susan, Peter, and Edmund are greatly concerned for their friend Mr. Tumnus who has been captured by the White Witch. They want to go after their friend to rescue him.
But Mr. and Mrs. Beaver won’t allow it. They know that they only have one hope. There’s only one way to save their friend. They need Aslan, the King, to come.
Mr. Beaver tells his new found friends this prophecy about Aslan, the Christ-like figure C.S. Lewis created in the Chronicles of Narnia:
“Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight, At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more, When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death, And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.”
from The Lion, The Witch, and te Wardrobe
Jesus
If you fast forward to the end of scripture, John, one of Jesus’ closest friends and followers wrote these words in Revelation 21 as he was having a vision of heaven, a vision of what would be 100 years, a thousand years, from now…
I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”
— Revelation 21.3-5
And the one sitting on the throne said, “Behold, I am making everything new!”
Jesus has come to make all things right, all things new.
Will you be a part of what Jesus is doing? The only way to find your life, to find real life, is to surrender your life to Jesus. The One who makes all things new.
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