QTVOTD: Tempted to Accentuate What is Visible…

17 For our light, momentary affliction (this slight distress of the passing hour) is ever more and more abundantly preparing and producing and achieving for us an everlasting weight of glory [beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all calculations, a vast and transcendent glory and blessedness never to cease!],
18 Since we consider and look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are visible are temporal (brief and fleeting), but the things that are invisible are deathless and everlasting. 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 [AMP]

Little bit shorter quiet time today but I want to be consistent in my daily time with the Lord. Even when I spend just a few minutes with God in His Word, desiring to learn more about Him, He never fails to extend something to me that I can apply. His Word NEVER returns void.

These 2 verses ending Chapter 4 pack a punch. In verse 16 Paul was talking about how the outer body wastes away while our inner selves are ever being renewed as we progress in our sanctification. So, he follows the though here into verse 17 saying that the pain we might feel in aging and the afflictions we endure here on earth are a small momentary issue to withstand and that time is more and more preparing us for an everlasting glory in eternity. Even more, our puny brains cannot comprehend the glory we will receive as we spend an eternity with Jesus in Heaven. I once heard that if all there was to understand about Heaven, the Spiritual Realm, and what awaits us in eternity could only be captured in the vastness of the ocean; our minds can only hold a soda can full of comprehension of those things.

Paul then talks to the fact that everything we can see is falling away and will expire…but what is not seen will not pass away and will last forever. Once again, I see the Lord telling me to focus on what He has in store for me in the eternal Kingdom. He knows that it is far too easy to be overwhelmed and distracted by all the things I can see, hear, feel, smell, and taste. I can get caught up in the passing of time and the anxiousness and concern that can come with not knowing what is ahead in this life on the earth under the sun. I can also become far too caught up in the hope of earthly future gain or fleshly desires. I must not be tempted to have these things squelch out the glory in eternity to come. I must keep my focus on what have faith in based on the promises of an Almighty God.

Application:

I’ve said it above and if you have been reading my blog posts of late, you will see that there is a common theme to all of my takeaways from each day for the last week or so. I must shut out the carnival vendor of earthly life shouting at me to come pop the balloons with the darts, knock over the bottles with a baseball, or land a ping pong ball in a dish for goldfish. I must politely say “No Thank You” and stay on my way out of the worldly fair; focused on the work for the Lord that grows His Kingdom. It is the entrance to God’s Kingdom that I will find my true treasure and prizes that await me when I join my Savior in paradise.

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