Having looked at the cosmic perspective, Paul comes back to us as individuals. For we too groan with expectation. A key feature of the Christian life is expectation of something better. The nature of the gospel is that we receive a foretaste of eternal blessings now, but we will only receive the full blessing when Christ returns. If the gospel does not make a difference to our lives now, then something is wrong. But something is equally wrong if we are not looking forward to future blessings (1 Cor 15:19).
In 1 Cor 13 Paul said that these three remain, faith, hope and love. We tend to focus on faith and love, but neglect hope. The Holy Spirit places a hope within us, and this is a hope for something that we do not yet have. Moreover, this hope leads to patience. In the world, when someone wants something they tend to be impatient, "I want it now!". In Christ hope produces patience. For unlike in the world, this hope is certain. We can be absolutely sure that one day we will be with Christ forever, we will be transformed to be like Him, every tear will have been wiped away, we will see God face to face. We become impatient when we doubt that we will actually get something, or think we might miss the opportunity. We have no need to be like this with God, His reward is sure.
Part of what we need to do in times of trial is to look forward to the certain, future, reward that we have in Christ.
No comments:
Post a Comment