#DailyDevotion Are You Ready For An Eternal Weight Of Glory?

2 Cor. 4:16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. 17 For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. 5:1 For we know that if the tent, which is our earthly home, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

Well we may not see it when we’re younger but eventually we start seeing our outer nature wasting away. It varies with people but I think it was around forty-five for me. Thanks be to God, my inner nature has been being renewed day by day long before that. But we can’t necessarily see that. We may see it sometimes. Others who know us well are more likely to see it in our lives than ourselves. But one thing is certain, we live by faith and not by sight.

Now Paul says ‘this momentary affliction’ and that may get some people who have endured much suffering life to get upset at him. But remember Paul was let down city walls in a basket because people wanted to kill him. He was stoned to the point of death a couple of times, imprisoned several times, chased out of town, shipwrecked, bitten by a poisonous snake, and was waiting to be beheaded while in a prison in Rome. This Paul says, “this slight momentary affliction.” Well what about it? It’s preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.

The Lord God is planning on sharing his glory with us and it is a heavy thing. Our hope Paul says elsewhere is in the glory of God. One day we will see our Lord Jesus Christ and we will be like him. St. Peter says, 2Pe 1:4 “so that through them [the promises] you may become partakers of the divine nature…” What is this divine nature we are partakers in? Well as said before, the eternal weight of glory, but also eternal life, God’s righteousness and the Spirit of God.

Now we have this earthly home which will be destroyed. The building from God not made with human hands is our new resurrected body which is imperishable, immortal, and glorious like our Lord Jesus Christ’s resurrected body. We can’t see it now or barely comprehend it but it is ours by sure and certain promises, the Lord’s resurrection, the Holy Spirit, baptism and the Supper all guarantees of this promise from God our Father. The resurrection of our bodies on the Last Day is a most precious doctrine of our faith which is greatly forgotten by most people, no thanks to TV, movies and incomplete preaching. But is foundational for our faith and hope and is what is supposed to carry us through whatever suffering and/or torture for the name of Christ we may undergo as we waste away, day by day. Look to the unseen and be encouraged by his promises daily.

Gracious God and Father, you have promised us, through faith in Jesus, that we have an eternal home, the weight of glory, a resurrected body and eternal life. Grant us the faith to look to the unseen that we may be encouraged to live by faith in these earthly tents which are wasting away. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.