Our hopes come from God and always are realized.
Our hopes come from God and always are realized.
Our dreams our fulfilled. There is a magic kingdom. There is a fairyland. There is every bright and joyous vision ever conceived. Eden is restored many, many times over. Those who experience Job's death experience Job's restoration.
The treasures we have laid away in Heaven are given to us. Sometimes God takes a loved one from us. What a deep, agonizing wound! But if we have been serving Him, God does this so we never again are at home in this present world. Our home now is in Heaven, and we never will have perfect joy until we have been reunited with our loved one who has gone on before.
We may have had to turn aside from our personal ambitions. But in Christ we are possessors of all the works of God's hands.
Perhaps we have been treated unjustly. Now we sit with Christ on the white throne, judging mankind.
We may have been brought very low, as was Christ. Now we are a royal priest, recognized as such by the members of the saved nations of the earth. For our shame we have received a double portion of glory.
We may have seen our values trampled underfoot by society. Now our values are Kingdom principles, enforced throughout the earth by mighty angels.
Perhaps we had our heart set on increasing our education. Now in Christ we have all the knowledge we need.
Our wisdom may have been spurned by the people of the world. Now our wisdom is established in Christ and shines as the light of the new world of righteousness.
As we grow older we grow increasingly tired. If the Lord asks us to use our remaining energy in His work, we will be given the boundless energy that holds the stars in their courses.
It is difficult in America to maintain an awareness of Christ and of the world of the Spirit. If the Lord requires that we walk in spiritual blindness for a season, as He does sometimes with true believers, in that Day we will know as we are known.
There are occasions when the Lord permits our perception to fail us. We cry for truth, and then fall into deception as Christ deals with a "king of darkness" in our personality. If we remain faithful, repenting, and making restitution if necessary, true perception is granted us.
The Lord may ask for our money, as He did the rich young ruler. If we know the Lord we quickly will give Him what He asks for, knowing well that He will not permit us to go without what we need.
If we have a strong desire for power, as often is true of those in political life, the Lord may bring us down to weakness. If we remain faithful, in the future we shall receive power and authority such as no earthly monarch ever has imagined.
Some believers are quite emotional, and Christ may bring them down to a place of ashes. Their romantic dreams are crushed. If we are willing to give this side of our personality to the Lord, we will discover in the future that all of the romantic dreams of poets are but a faint shadow of the marvelous realities of the heavenly kingdom.
The spirit of Antichrist invites us continually to look to the world for survival, for success, for pleasure, for security. This is a deception. For those who turn their back on the siren song of the world, the true, eternal survival, success, pleasure, and security will be found in the Lord Jesus Christ, and only in Him.
It may be true that the most difficult decision American believers make is to choose the way of righteousness when it means turning aside from what is pleasurable. We are so accustomed to material ease, comforts of every sort. But the saints of old have left bloody footprints in the snow. Until we are willing to follow them, we are not worthy of the Kingdom of God.
I have found personally that one of the best methods of practicing the Presence of Christ is to look to Him for each decision I make during the day. We may not always realize it, but we make numerous decisions each day, depending on our material circumstances.
For example, an American may commence the day by deciding what clothes to wear. He can use his own judgment, or ask the Lord. I prefer to ask the Lord.
He can decide what to eat for breakfast. He can go by his feelings, or ask the Lord.
A believer may think that Christ does not care what he eats for breakfast. He is mistaken. Christ does care, and will guide the person if he asks for guidance. Obesity and other aspects of our diet are issues in America at this time.
We can go through the day relying on our abilities, judgment, and experience. But we just as easily can keep looking to the Lord, in all our ways acknowledging Him. I prefer this method of decision-making, and recommend it.
There are all sorts of growth we experience in life: physical growth, mental growth; emotional growth, spiritual growth, social growth, and so forth. We prosper when we dedicate each of these areas to Christ so His will and pleasure are accomplished.
The more money we have the freer we are to travel from place to place, it seems. People often desire to move to another locality, believing they will be happier there. They may not find the satisfaction they are looking for, because the lessons God is teaching them will follow them into the new environment. Best not to move unless we really are hearing from the Lord.
There are drives of sin that motivate us. In order to get at these and remove them, God must crucify our adamic nature. There is no sin in the Kingdom of God. Those who would enter the Kingdom must follow the Holy Spirit as He guides us into putting to death the deeds of our sinful nature.
We must not hold back any aspect of our life, when the Lord calls for it. To do so is to prevent our attaining to the spiritual maturity God desires. All the factors of our first life are temporary. Each of them, no matter how noble, how praiseworthy, eventually will become corrupt and poisonous. It is only as each factor of our personality dies and is raised in Christ is the corruption and poison removed.
Now we understand how God crucifies our old life. We understand also that it is not a question of being deprived of anything of value. Rather, we are trading our threadbare garments for the robes of the royal priesthood. Our life is being rebuilt.
The elements of our new nature, rather than being temporary as is true of our first personality, are our possession for eternity.
What does it profit an individual if he gains the whole world, and in the Day of Resurrection is found to have nothing in his personality of eternal worth? Will he then lose his soul and become merely a spirit, no longer having the ability to make moral judgments; no longer being able to enter union with Christ and other people; no longer being in the image of God?