A Down Payment From God
Ephesians 1:13 In him you too, when you had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit.
Have you ever thought to yourself, “I wonder if this whole God thing is true, or whether it’s all a sham? Maybe when I die, there’ll just be … nothing and I’ll have wasted my whole life trying to honour someone who doesn’t exist, when all along, I could’ve been out there partying, enjoying myself.”
There’s a great movie called “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” where a bunch of middle class Brits move to India to retire, but when they get there, they discovered the Marigold Hotel, which had looked fantastic, had been Photoshopped in the online brochures. In reality, it was a broken down old place where nothing worked the way it was supposed to.
The young Indian man who ran the hotel, had a great line when they complained. He said, “Everything will be all right in the end. If it’s not all right, it is not yet the end.”
So is that what being a Christian is like? Do we have to discipline ourselves with blind faith today, and just hope for the best? Hope that there is a God and there is a heaven, without any real sense of whether or not that’s true.
God’s thought about that. And just as you or I would put down a deposit when we buy a property, to show the vendor that we’re serious, so God puts down a deposit in us, when we give our lives to Him, as clear evidence that He is serious, that what He says is true, that Jesus is who He says He is and that one day, we will spend eternity with Him.
So what does that down payment, that deposit look like?
In him you too, when you had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit. (Ephesians 1:13)
The original language literally talks about it being like a down payment, a guarantee. And that seal, is the seal of authenticity. In the old days, a letter was sealed with red wax, and stamped with a family crest that identified the person that it had come from. That seal guaranteed its authenticity.
If you believe in Jesus, you have received this down payment, this guarantee, this seal of authenticity, the Holy Spirit who now dwells in you.
And I don’t know how it is for you, but time and time again, when I feel weak, He makes me strong. When I feel down, He comforts me. When I need encouragement, He encourages me. When I don’t have the power that it takes to honour God, He gives me more power than I need.
The Holy Spirit is real. He is the real Presence of God in my life, in your life. He is how we know, that this whole God thing, this whole Jesus thing … is real.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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