The Lord has a day when He alone will be exalted over
all. Do we long for that day? Jesus taught the disciples, and us, to pray
for that very day but how much of my prayer life is consumed with some other day,
some other desire? I want to see that
day when Jesus is exalted, when heaven and earth bow down before Him to welcome
Him as King. There is coming a day when
all that the writer of Ecclesiastes speaks of as "under the sun" and
"vanity" will be seen for what it is, in comparison with its
Creator. We need that perspective on
things in order to restore the ultimate value to the One who brought all things
into being and whose love for us is that we are the pearl of great price to
Him.
Our issue comes down to materialism, but it is a scientific
materialism that is the problem, not necessarily economic materialism. We can't see beyond the now, we make our
decisions and live our lives for the things that are seen rather than the
things that are unseen. We need the Lord
to open our eyes to the reality that these things are passing away and that
there is another type of life of which we know nothing with our senses but our
hearts long for. The Sadducees are
materialists, they don't believe in the resurrection of the dead, they refuse
to imagine even that such a thing is possible.
Science teaches that very thing today and yet belief in a life after
this persists in many forms, eastern and Judeo-Christian. We have either a sense or a desire that this
isn't all there is, but too often we think of this world as some sort of analog
for the next and yet the Bible tells us that since the Fall we have no idea how
wonderful things are when sin doesn't spoil God's work.
Paul certainly taught something you rarely hear in churches
today, that people should be prepared for affliction. Nowadays you hear the very opposite being
preached and taught, that there will be prosperity, sweetness and light if you
follow Jesus, something He never once promised His own disciples. Paul has his own troubles but what encourages
him is that the Thessalonians haven't abandoned their faith because of
affliction. They were prepared for what
was to come, it didn't come as a surprise to them, it didn't cause them to
doubt because they knew that such things happen in the life of the followers of
Jesus. They knew that He had promised
that if He was persecuted and rejected so would those who follow Him. Are we prepared for difficulty or does it
make us doubt God or our own faith because we thought life would be simple and
easy? Are we expecting that now or do we
understand that eternity is a long time and this life is a fleeting breath?
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