How can a life be summed up in a few words?

Yesterday I noticed two boxes in my storage room. They are filled with notebooks — my devotional thoughts from many years before using the computer and storing them in digital files. This is my life in communion with Christ. I may have some reference to moving from place to place, raising three children, birthday parties, dinners with friends, vacations, leisure activities, and a host of other activities, but not the full account. How would I summarize dozens of years?

Today ends a devotional reading that summarize the New Testament. Thirty days of short notes hardly do justice to this Book of books. How can the life of the early church be summarized? How can the life of Christ be edited to a few words? The Apostle John didn’t even try. He said:

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:30–31)

Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. (John 21:25)

Peter tried to do it also:

God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name. (Acts 10:38–43)

Paul offered many short summary statements like this one:

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. (1 Corinthians 15:3–5)

As for the church, the summary I like the best is this one telling of the changes that happened because “in the fullness of time” God sent His Son to redeem sinners:

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9–11)

“And such were some of you.” This is the good news, the assurance that no matter what a person has done, the Lord Jesus Christ died to forgive, to redeem, to justify and sanctify, to make us children of God and inheritors of His kingdom.

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Lord Jesus, Your Book is rich with narrative, truth, instruction and all I need to know and walk with You. it gives me comfort, encouragement, hope and grace. I’m forgiven, changed and being changed. Life is rich and full of meaning, a great adventure because of You and because You communicate with me through the marvel of both the Old and New Testament. Thank You for speaking, for revealing Yourself in this way that I might see You in the pages of Your Word.