Our Light Afflictions
Our present troubles are quite small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us an immeasurably great glory that will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see right now; rather, we look forward to what we have not yet seen. For the troubles we see will soon be over, but the joys to come will last forever. 2 Corinthians 4:17-18
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Some people would argue that the concept Paul presents in these verses is a cop-out, an “opiate.” Indeed, if we are trying to avoid the pressures of life and secure some future pleasure, they might be right. However, if we are fixing our eyes on the eternal God and he is transforming us into his likeness, that’s another story!
Our challenge is to learn to see Jesus as he is. Paul tells us to leave our worldly understanding behind and to lay hold of the true, eternal Treasure, Jesus himself. Jesus told the Samaritan woman, “God is Spirit,” and therefore, spiritually discerned, and his disciples, “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you” (John 14:20, niv, niv). “That day” was after his resurrection, and it is now. Our present troubles are designed to turn our attention away from the temporal and toward the eternal, that we might live in God’s glory, now and forever!
Prayers:
LORD JESUS, focus my eyes clearly on the eternal, for that puts my present troubles into a proper perspective. Help me to see you as you are, to perceive you with my spirit, not just with my mind, and to realize that you are in me and I am in you! What glory!
Quotes:
GOD [IS] SPEAKING TO JOB OUT OF THE WHIRLWIND, AND SAYING, “IN THE SUNSHINE AND THE WARMTH YOU CANNOT MEET ME; BUT IN THE HURRICANE AND THE DARKNESS WHEN WAVE AFTER WAVE HAS SWEPT DOWN AND ACROSS THE SOUL, YOU SHALL SEE MY FORM AND KNOW THAT YOUR REDEEMER LIVES.”
Frederick William Robertson (1816–1853)
The One Year Bible Readings for today are: Job 37:1–39:30; 2 Corinthians 4:13–5:10; Psalm 44:9-26 and Proverbs 22:13.
