The great discipline of the
Christian life is the forward lean! I'll have us recall
that it was the face, not the backside of Moses, which shone
with the glory of GOD.
“And now, little children, abide in HIM;
that, when HE shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be
ashamed before HIM at HIS coming.” To be settled in
the fact of one day meeting our JUDGE holds tremendous sobriety
over our day to day affairs. “He
that hath the SON hath life; and he that hath not the SON OF GOD
hath not life.” There are those who seek to
live apart from HIM; but that end is the epitome of ‘death warmed
over’. Those having rejected new birth in CHRIST, even
those in the ICU's of the deeply religious, are a pitiful
lot with their tubes of human effort as the sole means of soul
support. “JESUS said unto her, I
am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in ME,
though he were dead, yet shall he live:” The
hopelessness that we see all around us is not clinical, but spiritual; very
real, and firmly rooted in the subliminal starkness of a CHRIST-less
eternity.
“As
for me, I will behold THY face in righteousness: I shall be
satisfied, when I awake, with THY likeness.”
There must be present in
every child of HIS, an incessant childlike anticipation; a
readiness, and a sanctified anxiety, to greet HIM at the conclusion of
the very next breath. “Then we
which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them
in the clouds, to meet the LORD in the air: and so shall we ever
be with the LORD.” If HE is our life, HE has to be
all of which we are mindful, the heartbeat of who we are.
GOD, in HIS grace, has offered us the escape of one day
appearing “before HIM” to be
judged for sin; and has instead offered HIMSELF that we might
appear “with HIM” in glory.
This blessed truth will
have a motivational effect in the person
who has truly met the MOTIVATOR.
"For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for
a little time, and then vanisheth away."
Force your faith upon HIM, and mind the MASTER, before WHOM
you'll appear before in glory sooner than you think.
“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of
the great GOD and our SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST;”