Now and forever
This week is on 2 Corinthians 4:16-18:
A lot of the Christian life consists of navigating blindly. We serve a God who creates, who is all powerful, and who renews and perfects us, yet we are surrounded by evil, decay, and decline. Our wealth grows and shrinks, our bodies age, friends and relatives die and move away, and our sports teams lose important games. From a scientific standpoint, it's hard to prove that our faith is worthwhile. But, faith is a funny thing.
Paul writes about all of this stuff. His body was wasting away, and he was condemned to death in a prison. He should have been discouraged with his life, but he knew how to see things from a big picture perspective. Our present life is only a blink in eternity. While it's nice to enjoy the moment, and it's great to be thankful for what we have, when bad things happen it's good to remind ourselves that it'll all pass soon enough. We are eternal beings, created in God's image, but we struggle to see things from an eternal perspective.
God is, was, and shall be a God of healing, even if he isn't healing you in this moment. God is, was, and shall be a God of victory, even if you're currently overwhelmed and failing. The momentary evidence is not what matters, but eternity is. If we'd stopped looking the moment Jesus breathed his last breath on the cross, we'd have missed the entire Gospel. The moment would have told you that nobody had ever survived being nailed to a cross, and even if it was possible, the Roman soldiers would have just nailed Jesus to another one. Science does a great job of describing the past, but only God determines the future.
The Bible is full of stories of people in sorry circumstances, in situations which nobody had ever come out of. No infertile couples had kids until Abraham and Sarah had Isaac. Nobody'd ever crossed a sea on foot until God parted one for Moses and the Israelites. The sun had never stood still in the sky until Joshua fought at Gibeon. What about the first guy who was healed of the blindness he was born with? What about forgiveness of sin?
But even if we go to our deaths without seeing miracles like that, we still win. We have eternity with God. The core of our faith lies in the fact that there's more to life than meets the eye. But we live in a world that only believes what it sees, and that relies on the past to predict the future. If we think like the world thinks, it's easy to get discouraged. But God is the author of life. His perspective is eternal. So don't get caught in the moment. Live in the freedom of eternity.
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
A lot of the Christian life consists of navigating blindly. We serve a God who creates, who is all powerful, and who renews and perfects us, yet we are surrounded by evil, decay, and decline. Our wealth grows and shrinks, our bodies age, friends and relatives die and move away, and our sports teams lose important games. From a scientific standpoint, it's hard to prove that our faith is worthwhile. But, faith is a funny thing.
Paul writes about all of this stuff. His body was wasting away, and he was condemned to death in a prison. He should have been discouraged with his life, but he knew how to see things from a big picture perspective. Our present life is only a blink in eternity. While it's nice to enjoy the moment, and it's great to be thankful for what we have, when bad things happen it's good to remind ourselves that it'll all pass soon enough. We are eternal beings, created in God's image, but we struggle to see things from an eternal perspective.
God is, was, and shall be a God of healing, even if he isn't healing you in this moment. God is, was, and shall be a God of victory, even if you're currently overwhelmed and failing. The momentary evidence is not what matters, but eternity is. If we'd stopped looking the moment Jesus breathed his last breath on the cross, we'd have missed the entire Gospel. The moment would have told you that nobody had ever survived being nailed to a cross, and even if it was possible, the Roman soldiers would have just nailed Jesus to another one. Science does a great job of describing the past, but only God determines the future.
The Bible is full of stories of people in sorry circumstances, in situations which nobody had ever come out of. No infertile couples had kids until Abraham and Sarah had Isaac. Nobody'd ever crossed a sea on foot until God parted one for Moses and the Israelites. The sun had never stood still in the sky until Joshua fought at Gibeon. What about the first guy who was healed of the blindness he was born with? What about forgiveness of sin?
But even if we go to our deaths without seeing miracles like that, we still win. We have eternity with God. The core of our faith lies in the fact that there's more to life than meets the eye. But we live in a world that only believes what it sees, and that relies on the past to predict the future. If we think like the world thinks, it's easy to get discouraged. But God is the author of life. His perspective is eternal. So don't get caught in the moment. Live in the freedom of eternity.
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