Midweek Message from the Archive
Providence: Part Four
The concept of time is a mystery. We’re caught within this realm temporarily but when Jesus returns, we’ll be outside of time as He is. However, He wasn’t always outside of time; there was an appointment for Him to release His heavenly form and put on the form of man: the incarnation.
There’s also an appointed time for believers to shed our human form and receive a heavenly form: a true mystery. Solomon, in the book of Ecclesiastes, closed his debate with himself in chapter three with these words:
He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, He has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. Ecc. 3:11
We can always find beauty in our world but when a believer sets his gaze on the next world, eternity with God, that’s where he finds true beauty.
Thanks be to God for His inexpressible gift! 2 Cor. 9:15
Inexpressible means that God’s gift of grace is beyond our ability to explain, grace that’s impossible to estimate, and indescribable, even unspeakable. The promise of His Return on That Day is the fulfillment of grace: He’s coming back for us.
What’s the timing?
But concerning That Day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son but the Father only. Matt. 24:36
When the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. Matt. 25:31
Therefore, stay awake for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. Matt. 24:42
Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
Matt. 24:44
And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Luke 21:27
We may not know the exact day or hour, but God has placed eternity in our hearts so that we are confidently expecting Him. That’s not pie in the sky … that’s truth that helps us find beauty in all our outward circumstances of life. He’s coming back: great motto.
Even though That Day is a mystery Jesus warned us to be prepared for His timing,
But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and That Day come upon you suddenly like a trap.
But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man. Luke 21:34, 36
King Solomon reminds us that we cannot find out what God has done from beginning to end, He keeps some things a mystery, but He’s also a God of divine providence: He provides all we need for this life and the next.
Keep that truth on your mind always.