To Encourage You

1 Peter 5:10 “And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.”

One of the distinguishing characteristics of a person who has eternal life is that their perspective of time is an eternal one.  You see, that’s God’s perspective, and He wants it to be ours as well.  God’s existence is separate from time. He had no beginning and He has no end.  It is only of Him that it can be said “in the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1). It’s with this eternal perspective that the Christian can view all of life, for the minute he or she places their faith in Christ, an eternity with the Lord is a promise they receive.  

The Christian understands that our life here on earth is like a “mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:14), and it’s with that perspective that everything else related to this life can be seen.  For example, every physical thing is viewed as something that will soon pass away.  Cars will rust and need to be repaired or replaced.  Houses will fall into disrepair unless we give them our constant attention, and even if we keep them in good repair, they soon won’t be ours as we either move to another one or leave them to someone else after we die.  Clothes fall out of fashion and pass from the scene. Everything, everywhere is slowly but surely fading and passing away.  

This can be a depressing thought, especially if our identity and sense of well-being is linked to the material things we possess.  But for the believer, this should never be, although we can be tempted towards that mindset if we let our minds be controlled by the messages of the world around us rather than the Word of God.  But if our focus is on God’s Word, if our faith is rooted in the promises of God, none of this will be a surprise to us.  As the apostle Paul said as he looked back at the things of this world that were everything to him before he knew Christ “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:8-10).  

Yes, as the old hymn says, “the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.”  But it is more than the knowledge of the fading nature of material things that should be in view for the believer in Jesus.  Wonderfully, one of the most awesome truths of the Word of God is the time-limited nature of the trials and sufferings of this life as noted in the verse above.   Here Peter assures the persecuted believers of the early church that their sufferings – regardless of how intense and overwhelming they might seem – will only be for “a little while.”  That’s the way we will one day look at any suffering we have ever endured in this life as believers.  

In similar language to the Corinthian church Paul says this about their sufferings: “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,  as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:17-18).  This from one who endured one form of suffering after another during his earthly life.  Listen as he describes his life as a Christian later in the same letter to the Corinthian church as he reminds them that he was one “with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death.  Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one.  Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea;  on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers;  in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure” (2 Corinthians 11:23-27).  Isn’t it incredible that one who had suffered like this could talk about those things as “light and momentary afflictions?”  But he was able to do so because, as a believer in the wonderful promises of God, he had an eternal perspective about everything.  And in the over 2,000 years since Paul wrote these words, he surely knows the truth of them now more than ever, for he has been experiencing the joy of heaven ever since his death.  He is experiencing a place where there are no more tears, nor death, nor mourning, nor crying, nor pain (Revelation 21:4). 

There are no wheelchairs in heaven – no cancer, no blindness, no deafness, no Down syndrome, no cystic fibrosis, no muscular dystrophy, no multiple sclerosis, no disease at all – forever.  No, these things, like material things, wonderfully, for the Christian, are all passing away.  That’s what eternity will be like for the believer – an eternity that will make the sufferings of this short life seem like a distant memory in light of the “eternal weight of glory beyond comparison” that will be theirs.  

So, what about you? Do you have this eternal perspective?  Have you received the gift of eternal life that is free to all those who believe?  Have you chosen the path of Moses, who “when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin” (Hebrews 11:24-25)?   If not, you can, by turning from your life of sin in this fleeting time on earth and embracing the Savior who wants to rescue you from the wrath to come and bless you for all eternity with things that “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined (for that’s) what God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).