TAKING THE LONG LOOK

May 15, 2024

Life is a mixture of the hard and the easy, the bad and the good. If you follow Christ, particularly if you live to serve Christ, this seems even to be magnified.

If we are not careful on the hard days, we forget what this is all about. We can whine about our problems and wallow in self-pity. This is why Paul gave us two lists in 2 Corinthians 6:4-10. They consist of the hardships he was experiencing but also the joyful, beautiful realities. He lists 18 things in each, balancing the hard and the glorious. Read through the lists with pen in hand, and mark which ones you’ve experienced.

HARD THINGS

1. Endurance

2. Hardship

3. Distress

4. Beatings

5. Imprisonments

6. Tumults

7. Labors

8. Sleeplessness

9. Hunger

10. Dishonor

11. Evil report

12. Regarded as deceivers

13. Unknown

14. Dying

15. Punished

16. Sorrowful

17. Poor

18. Having nothing

GLORIOUS THINGS

1. Purity

2. Knowledge

3. Patience

4. Kindness

5. The Holy Spirit

6. Genuine love

7. The word of truth

8. The power of God

9. Weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left

10. Glory

11. Good report

12. True

13. Well-known

14. We LIVE!

15. Not put to death

16. Always rejoicing

17. Making many rich

18. Possessing all things

The truth for the follower of Christ is that even the hard things contribute to the glory of walking with Christ and serving Him and others. Nothing separates us from His love. All things work together for good to conform us to the image of God’s Son. Every step has meaning; every hardship has purpose. For the faithful follower of Jesus, there is no reason to despair. All are producing something, helping someone, and leading somewhere. We are carried by the long look.

Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, 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. For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. (2 Corinthians 4:16-5:1)

Every hardship is momentary and light compared to the weight of glory… and heaven awaits!

Also in Graceful Truth

A NEAR SIX-DECADE TESTIMONY OF THE VALUE AND JOY OF SIMPLY READING THE BIBLE EVERY DAY

January 01, 2025

So this morning, January 1, 2025, I rise early once again. I will enter into the throne room before the Father, because the Son has made a way for me to come into this “grace in which I now stand.” I will open the Word God has written and preserved for me so I could have it in my hands. I will ask the precious Holy Spirit to teach me, showing me things which “eye has not seen and ear has not heard” that have been prepared for me. And I will have the glorious privilege, once again, of communing with God.