Saturday June 27, 2020

2 Corinthians 4:16-9

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.

No one likes trouble. We like peace, security, comfort, a life with some semblance of order and good. We expend a great deal of energy attempting to hold on to things, to that we think defines us, attempting to build something that will last. We want to achieve, accomplish, be valued, enjoy life. We might even think, “Isn’t this what the Christian life is supposed to be?” Didn’t’t Jesus promise that it was all going to be good if we believe in Him? The truth is, it is just the opposite.

Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

When we are often about the outcome we are looking for, hoping trouble stays away, or at least goes away, looking for a comfortable secure day, with few surprises, God is about the relationship He wants to have with us, an eternal one.

There is a difference between looking for what God can give us and looking for God.

James Bryan Smith in the book, “THE GOOD AND BEAUTIFUL GOD” writes,

“The question is not: How many people take you seriously? How much are you going to accomplish? Can you show some results? (But) Are you in love with Jesus? In our world of loneliness and despair, there is an enormous need for men and women who know the heart of God; a heart that forgives, cares, reaches out and want to heal.”

What is outward will waste away, slip away, at the best become not nearly as important as we might have thought. But the inner nature, that part that loves, cares, gives, believes, hopes, that is in a deep relationship with Jesus Christ, that part is eternal. In today’s passage its expressed as eternal glory. It is expressed most fully in the unique nature of a cross, of an empty tomb, and the promise that we will see the God of that cross and empty tomb one day face to face. Yes “For God so loved the world”.

It’s not about what God can do in the world to make it all good for us, it is about what God is doing in us. Are we learning to trust him, believe more deeply, live more fully, love more completely, serve more willingly, hope more abundantly…? The love of God for us surely saves us, but our love for God and others changes us. As the outer nature fades, that which seemed so important at one time slips away, is our ability to trust and love God growing.

Is the glory of God part of your life? Is this glory being renewed day by day as the outer nature slips away? We can’t stop the outer nature from fading, but we can open our heart to the God of glory to renew the inner nature, looking not around us at what we can see, but living by what we can’t see. Can we love God like He deserves, looking forward to when we will see Him face to face? Will we choose to forgive, to understand, to live into a relationship with God and those He has given us to love day by day. Will we choose to enter the realm of eternal glory that transcends this life and promises the next. In the COVID-19 season it might not be about a virus, it might be about loving God. It’s fact it is. Glory is always centered in what God is about, and God is always about the relationship.

God, today we don’t ask you to fix the world, we don’t ask you to get rid of trouble. You know we always want that. We ask you to enter our hearts, to walk with us, to grow within us our own ability to love you and the people you give us to love. We know we have little control over the outer nature that slips away day by day. We ask you help us not live by what is slipping away, but by what we can’t see, an eternal weight of glory that outweighs everything else. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.