If God hasn’t yet judged the world that doesn’t mean He is indifferent to evil; it means He is still holding the door of salvation open. His longsuffering is nothing less than our salvation. We are the world’s greatest fools if we don’t see that.
Any goal less powerful than being with God in eternity will fail to keep us going. We must fix our hearts upon our Lord and determine that we are going to run the race, come whatever may. There can be no question or equivocation about it.
We should reject our pre-Christian past decisively. If thinking about “Egypt” tempts us to go back, even if it’s just in our hearts, we must determine not to do it. After all, it is not backward but forward that we are reaching. To the Promised Land!
Your activities must be motivated by love, first for God and second for your neighbor. If that’s the case (and God knows whether it is or not), then discouragement will not defeat you. Other motives may falter, but “many waters cannot quench love.”
Will we live with God in eternity? If we leave this life in a right relationship with God, we will hear Him say, “Enter into the joy of your lord” (Matthew 25:21). But if not, we will hear, “I never knew you; depart from Me” (Matthew 7:23).
Why do we do what we do for God? If no one ever noticed or thanked us, would we be content simply to know that God had been glorified? Too often, what we’re really seeking is some (special) person’s “recognition” that we’re a good individual.
God makes it possible that those who “sow in tears shall reap in joy.” We might wish the harvest were already here, but that time is not yet. For all we know, it may be very near, but for now, the harvest is still in the future. We live in hope!
Our redemption won’t be accomplished if we’re not willing to know God as He truly is, and it’s primarily in the language of the Scriptures that He reveals Himself as He truly is. The only question is: what will we do with this information?
We’ve been forgiven of sins that we didn’t deserve to have forgiven. God has been patient with us, far past the point when justice would have blasted us out of existence. But do we “repay according to the favor shown” to us? Too often, we do not.
We need to be grateful for the hopes, aspirations, and desires that God has planted within our hearts — and we need to be willing for those desires to be fulfilled on His terms. If not, we’re on a path that leads to disappointment in the end.
