Saturday September 3, 2022

An eternal weight of glory

Our slight difficulties of the present moment produce for us, beyond all measure, an eternal weight of glory. So we look not at what is visible, but at what is invisible, for the visible realities are transient and the invisible are eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:17,18

The apostle Paul has just mentioned all kinds of trials he went through. We consider them intense and painful, but he calls them light ! How can he say that about the deep suffering he experienced ?

The glory to come that he contemplates, superabundant and eternal, makes him take the right measure of the things of the earth, even the most painful. Certainly his body was wasting away, but in his trials Paul fixed his eyes on the final goal: glory with Christ. In his body he is weakened, broken, but his inner man is renewed day by day, the power of divine life, linked to the new creation, unfolds in him and around him by his testimony (2 Corinthians 4:16).

Our trials are not useless : they keep us from pride, they push us to look beyond our very short life, they allow us to manifest the reality of our faith to those around us, they give God the opportunity to deploy its power. Attention : glory does not depend on our sufferings, they have no merit in themselves. But the mysterious promise of the Lord remains : If we suffer, we will also reign with him (2 Timothy 2:12).

By gaining height, the horizon extends and the eye of faith discerns what is invisible from below ; faith sees what is hidden from the natural eye.

Our difficulties, which we think are to our disadvantage, contribute to our greatest good, when we consider them in the light of heaven, when we measure them against the scale of glory. On the one hand, they only last for the present moment, while the glory is eternal. On the other hand, the eternal weight of glory they produce will come back to us in superabundant measure.

May this glorious prospect encourage us and help us to endure our trials by living them with our eyes fixed on the One who is the guarantor that all the promises of God will be fulfilled.

Source (Pleasing the Lord)

Thursday August 4, 2022

Nothing could stop Jesus

As Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside, and said to them on the way : Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes. They will condemn him to death, and they will hand him over to the Gentiles, to make fun of him, beat him with rods, and crucify him ; and on the third day he will rise again. Matthew 20:17-19

Jesus said to him : Touch me not, for I have not yet ascended to my Father. But go find my brothers, and tell them that I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. John 20:17

Nothing could stop Jesus in the accomplishment of his work of salvation, neither Satan who approaches him to tempt him in the desert after 40 days of fasting, nor his fellow citizens in Nazareth who seek to precipitate him from the steep edge from a mountain in the void, nor his disciple Peter who wants to prevent him from going to Jerusalem by reproaching him, nor the religious leaders who pick up stones to stone him in the precincts of the temple. Neither did the scribes succeed in slowing his march towards Jerusalem by asking him questions to trap him.

When Judas the Iscariot leads soldiers and bailiffs to arrest Jesus, the disciples ask their Master if they can take up the sword to defend him. Pierre does not wait for the answer. He strikes the slave of the high priest and cuts off his ear. Jesus holds them back and says to them : Leave, stop ! (Luke 22:51), and heals the wounded.

Pilate, knowing that Jesus is innocent, seeks to save him from being condemned to crucifixion. But the crowd and the leaders of the people put pressure, and he yields. Will they finally have victory by having him crucified ?

They finally believe they have triumphed when Jesus exclaims : It is accomplished and gives his life. For them, it's over, their goal is achieved. However, they have the large stone that closes the tomb sealed and place guards to prevent the disciples from removing the body of the Lord. Useless precaution ! As he had announced, Jesus, on the third day, rises again and he appears to Mary of Magdala who tries to hold him back. He entrusts to him his first message of the Risen One : Go find my brothers, and tell them that I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.

No, nothing could stop the Lord Jesus from carrying out the great purpose of God : the work of salvation.

Source (Pleasing the Lord)

Sunday March 27, 2022

Our faith : a lever to move mountains

Paul and Barnabas therefore stayed long enough at Iconuim ; they spoke boldly, leaning on the Lord who bore witness to the word of his grace and allowing miraculous signs and wonders to be done through them. Acts 14:3

And he (Jesus) said : Come ! Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water to go to Jesus. But, seeing that the wind was strong, he was afraid ; and, as he began to sink, he cried out : Lord, save me ! Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand, seized him, and said to him : You of little faith, why did you doubt ? Matthew 14:29-31

Archimedes, a 3rd century BCE Greek scholar, once said : "Give me a lever and a fulcrum, and I will lift the world." This is theoretically true, but in practice it would require a lever of extraordinary length and strength and an extremely strong fulcrum !

On what or on whom is our faith based ? The Lord tells us : If you had faith like a mustard seed, you would say to this mountain : Move from here to there, and it would move, nothing will be impossible for you (Matthew 17:20). We do not pretend to lift the world. But we still have the privilege of seeing the obstacles that Satan insists on putting in front of us move, if we use our faith as a lever and Jesus as a fulcrum.

When it comes to bringing the Gospel to those who are still strangers to the grace of God, mountains often rise up before us, obstacles that seem insurmountable : "the moment is not propitious", "it he may be a brutal man", "in any case he will not listen"... It is neither by our strength, nor by our wisdom that we will be able to remove these obstacles, it is by faith . And there is only one point of support so that the “lever” of our faith can prove effective, it is the Lord Jesus himself. But she often proves too weak. It doesn't take much, but it has to be alive, like a mustard seed that has a little living germ in it and grows into a great plant.

Let us take courage, even if our faith wavers and the Lord must tell us like Peter : You of little faith, why did you doubt ? In this case, the hand of Jesus is always ready to seize us to straighten us up. Would he have called us to let us perish ?

Source (Pleasing the Lord)

Friday March 25, 2022

In memory of me

Do this in memory of me. 1 Corinthians 11:24

It seems that Christians could forget Christ. The text implies the possibility of forgetting the one we should remember with gratitude and love. This exhortation would not be necessary, if it were not supposed that our memories are deceptive. This is not a simple supposition : our experience, alas, testifies only too well that this is not a possibility, but a lamentable fact. It seems almost impossible that those who have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb could forget their Redeemer ; that those who have been loved with an eternal love by the eternal Son of God, may forget this Son ; but shocking as it is to the ear, there is no denying its reality. Forget the one who never forgets us ! Forget the one who shed his blood for our sins ! Forget the one who loved us until death ! Is it possible ?

The cause of this forgetting is obvious... We forget Christ, because the regenerated people that we truly are are still subject to corruption and death... We forget Christ because so many other things around us attract our attention : a handful of gold, a whiff of fame, the sound of applause, prosperous business, a house, a home, attract us more than all the glories of the world above.

Christians have many treasures to cherish in their memory. Let them remember their election : elected in him before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4). Let them be aware of their origin : they were pulled out of a quagmire, out of a horrible well. Let them remember their call : they are called of God, and saved by the power of the Holy Spirit... But there is someone who, beyond all these benefits of God, deserves to be remember him forever, a person whose portrait I would frame in gold to place in the inner chamber of my soul. It is the glorious person of Christ, the object of our remembrance.

Excerpts from a sermon preached on January 7, 1855 in England by the evangelist C.H. Spurgeon.

He was only 20 years !

Source (Pleasing the Lord)

Thursday March 24, 2022

An epistle for young Christians, and the older ones !

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We constantly tell God how grateful we are to you all by mentioning you in our prayers. We constantly remember the work of your faith, the work of your love and the firmness of your hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, before God our Father. We know brothers and sisters loved by God, that he has chosen you. 1 Thessalonians 1:1-4

It is likely to think that the Christians of Thessalonica had only recently come to know Jesus Christ when Paul wrote to them. He hardly had time to instruct them when he had to leave them, leaving them the object of persecution. Worried, he writes to them of the immense affection he has for them and reminds them of the marks of love he has received from them. It also renews essential teachings without the practice of which there is no Christian life.

The new life received by these new converts is manifested by a great fervor that is reflected in all their behavior :

Their work of faith. Their trust in God their Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ overcomes the obstacles placed by the Gentile or Jewish world. Oh, if we all had that faith that knows and calls on the power of God (1 Corinthians 2:5) !

Their labor of love. No laziness with them ! Love for others drives them to dedication ; in this they are imitators of the Lord who came to earth to serve men before giving his life as a ransom for them. During the epistle, Paul writes to them : May the Lord increase and overflow the love you have for one another and for all men, like the one we have for you ! (1 Thessalonians 3:12). Let us ask the Lord not to remain centered on ourselves and our personal interests. May he fill us with love for others, every day and in all circumstances !

Their patience of hope. These young believers had learned from Paul that the Lord would soon return. This expectation allowed them to patiently endure the difficulties they faced. The return of the Lord is closer today than ever. So let's all live, young and old, as devoted servants for their Master. The thought of seeing him soon energizes us to live as people who are called by God to his own kingdom and glory (1 Thessalonians 2:12).

Source (Pleasing the Lord)