Thursday, June 7, 2018

Glory


Thursday, June 7, 2018
The end of the world is coming soon.  Therefore, be earnest and disciplined in your prayers.  Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins.  Cheerfully share your home with those who need a meal or a place to stay.  God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts.  Use them well to serve one another.  Do you have the gift of speaking?  Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you.  Do you have the gift of helping others?  Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies.  Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ.  All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen.  1 Peter 4:7-11(NLT)
Did Peter miss it?  He wrote that the end of the world was coming soon; did he misspeak himself?  Was he wrong?  Is Scripture somehow untrustworthy because the head of the Apostle’s group failed to prophesy accurately?  After all, in the days of ancient Israel the penalty for a prophet, one who spoke the Word of God, but didn’t have a 100% accuracy record…was stoning to death.  So, do we pick up a stone and bring Peter to the edge of town? 
Or is there an explanation we haven’t considered?
Well, for one thing, literally every person that was alive when Peter wrote those words is dead now – that happens in the course of 2,000 years.  For each of them, their world didn’t last more than several decades past the ink drying on Peter’s letter.  So, for each of the believers to whom Peter wrote, the world did end rather quickly; quickly in the sense that when they breathed their last (for some, perhaps that same day…others within a normal lifespan), it was over too quickly.  And it’s always too quickly, isn’t it?  Just ask anyone over 60 how quickly life seems to have slipped away.
But for all those to whom Peter wrote in the first century, the difference between the last breath, and the next moment is an instant, quickly, the twinkling of an eye.  One moment the body is alive, pulsating, experiencing – the next moment the spirit is gone!
The whole point with Peter’s prophecy about the world coming to an end IS a reality for every human being; we will all die someday.  But, lest I evade the point altogether, someday the world’s end will be a cataclysmic reality for everyone.  At some point of God’s choosing this world will pass away, and there will be, according to Revelation (21:1) a new heaven and a new earth.  And, for those who trust in Christ, there will also be new bodies, and an indescribable new life with God forever.
While this is the fondest, grandest theme of our Christian hope, there is also that part of our Christian experience that must be lived-out in the here and now.  Peter does not ignore that.  He reminds us to pray and love deeply, and to be hospitable, using our gifts to serve each other.  And to do all of it with every bit of strength we possess.  In the doing, our lives bring glory to the One we love and serve.
In sum, the Apostle is bidding all believers to leave behind a ho-hum, lackadaisical approach to our Christian faith, in favor of a vibrant, energetic, all-in embrace of the Spirit of Christ.  He is calling for our heart and soul, not just a body occupying a pew.
For You Today
With the dawning of each new day there is an opportunity to bring glory to God or contribute to the stagnant pool of unbelief; your choice…always.
You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day. 

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[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com

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