Wednesday, December 23
“For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:17-19). What hope do these texts offer us? What might some of these unseen eternal things be that we are waiting for, that we are promised through Jesus? See also Rev. 21:1, 2; Rev. 2:7; Rev. 7:14-17.
However real the promises offered us in Jesus, however many good reasons we have to believe in them, the fact remains that the Bible gives us just hints, glimpses, of what awaits us. One thing that we can be sure of, however, is that it’s going to be great, because just think how great life would be in an existence without the ravages of sin!
All our pain, all our suffering, all the things that we struggle with here come from sin and the consequences of sin. Christ came to undo all that, and He will restore the earth to what God originally had intended it to be before sin entered. In fact, it will be better, because amid all these glories we will forever be able to behold the scars on Jesus’ hands and feet, the cost of our redemption.
“There, when the veil that darkens our vision shall be removed, and our eyes shall behold that world of beauty of which we now catch glimpses through the microscope; when we look on the glories of the heavens, now scanned afar through the telescope; when, the blight of sin removed, the whole earth shall appear in ‘the beauty of the Lord our God,’ what a field will be open to our study! There the student of science may read the records of creation and discern no reminders of the law of evil. He may listen to the music of nature’s voices and detect no note of wailing or undertone of sorrow. In all created things he may trace one handwriting – in the vast universe behold ‘God’s name writ large,’ and not in earth or sea or sky one sign of ill remaining.” Ellen G. White, Education, p. 303.
Try to picture what it will be like living forever in an entirely new world, one without all that makes life here so hard. What do you envision it to be like? What things are you particularly looking forward to?
