THE LAST POST

Written by Chris Bloom, posted by Lora Bloom

Not the last post ever on this site (I hope), but the last one I plan on writing here. And it's not that I don't enjoy it or that the weblord wants me to leave (I hope). I've just met my goal. I wanted to do a weekly post for a year and I did it. Now I can go back to not junking up the page and you can get back to reading about Bibles, which is why you came here in the first place.

I'm profoundly grateful for the opportunity to do this and for your patience with me. I'm also extremely grateful to my wife, who has always done more than was necessary and without whom I literally could not have done this. Most of all, I'm thankful to God for saving my soul and for giving me the ability and desire to write about him and his word.

(I know that last paragraph sounds like an award speech, but you can tell it's not because it didn't last 25 minutes. Unless you're a very slow reader.)

Beyond expressing my gratitude, the best thing I can do is finish where I started. Examine yourselves, like the Bible says to do in 2Corinthians 13.5. If nothing else, I hope I've impressed upon you a very high view of Scripture. If the Bible, especially the New Testament, tells you to do something, you should sit up and take notice. It's not just there to take up space.

Examine yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Nothing is more important to a person than the fate of his soul. The winner of the American presidential election doesn't matter. Making your first million doesn't matter. The color of your first child’s hair doesn't matter. Compared to where you will spend eternity all of these things are trivial.

Think of your most important relationship, the one that makes you who you are and that defines you. It's a sobering thought that if the answer is anything but God, you've created an idol and thus failed the test. Who do we love most? 

That's what makes it so devilishly hard. Love is, in itself, a good thing, and we'd all be much better people if we gave and received more of it. But a good thing is not necessarily the best thing.

That's one reason we need to examine ourselves in the light of Scripture. The Bible is clear that the best thing for humanity is to know God, and that anything or anyone else will fall short.

I find that especially difficult because I love my family so much. I know my wife and children aren't perfect, but I've always found it very easy to place them on the pedestal that only God should occupy. The challenge for me has always been to love God more than them. When I've examined myself in the light of Scripture, I've seen myself for what I was: an idolator.

God didn't owe anyone salvation. None of us has done him a favor by being saved from Hell. He did it all by his own choice. He didn't owe anyone a Bible either, but he provided one anyway, and I believe one reason he did was to give us something to examine ourselves against. 

[LC Bloom is going to miss all of you.]