The Christian's Hope ~ An Eternal Perspective

I was very blessed by reading this tonight, and hope that maybe it will encourage some of you as well.

The minor afflictions and major troubles of this life can mount up to seem like a wall of obstruction and discouragement on so many levels but nothing believers are called to deal with, face, endure is to be compared with what our Lord has planned for them who love Him.

Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered
the heart of man what the Lord has prepared
for them that love Him.

1 Corinthians 2:9

If this life was all happiness, ease and triumph, we would come to love being here so well that we would forget this world is not our home and what’s more, is passing away. If we never faced hardship, this world would be to us the prison it is to so many . . . a gilded cell we would never want to leave.

But no, the longer we live and the more that challenges mount (physical or relational . . . persecution for some) the more clear the illusion of this world becomes so that we see on the horizon a future far brighter than any passing moment we experience here.

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.

If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

1 John 2:15

The Christian’s hope is not in this life. I’m reminded just now of a few lines from an old hymn I love . . .

“My God, I Thank Thee” by Adelaide A. Proctor.

I thank Thee more that all our joy
Is touched with pain,
That shadows fall on brightest hours,
That thorns remain;
So that earth’s bliss may be our guide,
And not our chain.

An eternal perspective reminds us not to love the world.

- written by Matthew L. Jacobson, on his website: Matthew L. Jacobson, article entitled: A Question for Dr. Stephen Hawking: What Do You Hope For?

~Brittany