(Charles Spurgeon)
"We fix our eyes not on what is seen--but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal!" 2 Corinthians 4:18
In our Christian pilgrimage it is well, for the most part--to be looking forward. Forward lies the crown--and onward is the goal. Whether it is for hope, for joy, for consolation, or for the inspiring of our love--the future must, after all, be the grand object of the eye of faith!
Looking into the future--the Christian see sin cast out, the body of sin and death destroyed, the soul made perfect, and fit to be a partaker of eternal glory. Looking further yet, the believer's enlightened eye can see death's river passed. He sees himself . . .
enter within the pearly gates,
hailed as more than conqueror,
crowned by the hand of Christ,
embraced in the arms of Jesus,
glorified with Him, and made to sit together with Him on His throne!
Contemplation of my glorious future may well relieve, the darkness of the past, and the gloom of the present!
The joys of heaven will surely compensate for the sorrows of earth!
Hush, hush, my fears!
Death is but a narrow stream--and you shall soon have forded it!
Death--how brief! Immortality--how endless!
Time--how short! Eternity--how long!
The road is so, so short! I shall soon be there!
"In the future, there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on that day; and not only to me--but to all those who have loved His appearing!" 2 Timothy 4:8
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3 comments:
Excellent, Wayne!
That is our Hope!
This life we live is not life. This life is a living death. This whole world is ruins brilliantly disguised as elegance. Christ alone is life. Christ has come, bringing his life into the wreckage called us. He has opened up, even in these ruins, the frontier of a new world where grace reigns. He is not on a mission to help us improve our lives here. He is on a mission to create a new universe, where grace reigns in life. He is that massive, that majestic, that decisive, that critical and towering and triumphant.
We don't "apply this to our lives." It's too big for that. But we worship him. And we boast in the hope of living forever with him in his new death-free world of grace.
What's amazing about this journey and the promised reward is that we didn't choose to be created. God chose to create us. We are on life's journey without any credit to ourselves. We who walk the hard path and seek the narrow gate can claim no responsibility for the accomplishment of reaching the goal. God saved me, will not leave me, and will finish the work He began in me. It's as though God drags me to my reward, despite my daily distractions and sinfulness. His children WILL gain character and WILL be rewarded. What an awesome God we serve!
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