I have been reminded in a number of ways this week that following our saviour is sometimes very hard work. It can be physically and emotionally exhausting to live not for yourself, but for others. In God’s kindness, he grants us his very precious promises to encourage us to persevere. I found this little article that Gordon Cheng wrote for Briefing #290 a great encouragement. Hopefully it will encourage you too:
My wife and I have known some of the sufferings of ministry—in our relationships, in opposition from those we thought were in fellowship with us, financial and health struggles. But we can also see that it has been well and truly worth it, for the joy of seeing the gospel at work wherever we have been serving the Lord. But something else has driven us on.
The promise of Scripture is that, as we share in Jesus’ sufferings, we will also share in his glory. Along with Romans 8:17, there is the promise of Jesus himself in Mark 10:29-31:
Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.
This is really one of those fundamental Bible truths that you can’t illustrate. Suffering now, glory later. Why can’t we illustrate it? Because we are really trying to describe the nature of heaven, and eternal life with Christ. We can’t illustrate it because no-one’s seen the original to know what it is we’re illustrating. The faith we have is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Heb 11:1). The best attempts at illustration are in the final chapters of the book of Revelation, and even there we sense a straining at the boundaries of language.
If we can’t illustrate it, we can hope for it with a confident hope, remind each other about it, and pray that we will all share in the reality of relationship forever with Jesus in heaven, living in the house that he’s prepared for us with the name that he’s given us. What a marvellous thing to look forward to.
And we can pray with Paul his prayer in Ephesians 1, that God may give us a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of our hearts enlightened, that we may know the hope to which he has called us, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe.
Amen.
It is great to fix our eyes on our hope in heaven.
But it’s interesting that Gordon has jumped over the comfort that Jesus offers to us even in this world: <i>a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions</i>
And on top of this he offers eternal life. Sure the hope of heaven is a huge comfort for us now, but so is Jesus’ abundant (hundredfold) provision of the things we give up for his sake and for the gospel, even if they come hand in hand with persecution.
Surely our comfort is both now and not yet, not just ‘not yet’?
Sam, by happy coincidence the next post by Lionel addresses the issue you raise.