We all know we are called to walk by faith and not by sight (II Cor. 5:7). What we often don’t know is how terrible we are at it. We tend to think of it as the ability to believe the future promises of God. That’s surely a part of it. But so is our calling to believe the present promises of God. The Bible doesn’t tell us that we will be seated with Christ in the heavenly places but that we are so seated (Eph 6:2). It doesn’t teach us that we will be beloved of the Father but that we are beloved of the Father (I John 3:1).
That said, we are called to now have the faith to recognize that the life we see now is a drop in the bucket compared to the life we will have forever. C.S. Lewis, at least twice, unpacked this glorious truth. First, at the end of the seven Chronicles of Narnia, as the Pevensie children enter into eternity Lewis describes all that they have experienced as merely the first paragraph of a story that has no end. Second, Lewis described not the unseen world, but this world as the “Shadowlands.”
While our lives are real now, they will be both more alive and more real then. As Lewis illustrates in The Great Divorce, it is as if eternity has a greater density than the merely temporal. We are living in the wispy world of shadows, on our way to the true and eternal Mount Zion.
To grasp this isn’t to succumb to the folly of Gnosticism. It doesn’t undo His declaration that His creation is good (Gen. 1:31). We don’t despise these days of small beginnings (Zech. 4:10) but give thanks. Indeed we invest our lives here knowing that right now counts forever, that all that we do by His grace and for His glory will prove not to be wood, hay and stubble. Rather it will last into eternity. It is to remember that forever counts right now.
This is just the beginning. He who has begun a good work in us will carry it through to the day of Christ Jesus (Phil. 1:6). The whole creation groans, and it will when the labor comes to an end, be just as incorruptible as we will be. It too will take on immortality. Heaven and earth will embrace as time and eternity kiss.
Walking by faith means, in part, living today in light of eternity. It means walking, plowing in hope. It means suffering with endurance. It means joy in the mourning. It means being anchored, now and forever, in the never-ending glorious truth that He is able and He is for us. Rejoice, for even should He tarry for a thousand generations, the end is near.
That was a great message filled with glorious hope! Spoken to me at a time when I really needed to hear it. Thank you so much brother 🙏
Thank you brother, and God bless you.