Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from “The Adult Sabbath School Guide” is titled “Final Restoration of Unity”. A nice way to finish this quarter. By looking at the final restoration of all things, “when Christ returns in the clouds of heaven…” (Quarterly for Sabbath, December 22). Butt this “final restoration” is not only “sweet” but “bitter”, too. Sweet, because we will see our Savior and Friend face-to-face and be with Him forever. Bitter, because many we know and love will not be there. This brings-up an interesting question for us all. “Is there anything in this world more important to you than this final restoration”? I hope there is.
A strange way to ask this question. One of the true criticisms of Christianity is that its adherents are focused on the hereafter more than the here-and-now. And sadly this criticism has some validity. We so love our God. We long to see Him. We long to see our loved ones again and reside with them. But for the sake of those who know-not our God or have such misconceptions of Him that they reject Him, Christ came and put His own eternal security in jeopardy. Willingly laid His own eternal security on the altar. Willingly sacrificed everything to win the “lost” back to love and trust again. Christ willingly, of His own volition, set aside everything for others. And it is this mind of Christ, which we are to have (see Philippian’s 2: 1-11).
Therefore, if as Christians we still place our own security above any other, then we have not been made perfect in love. “He who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen” (`1 John 4:20). If we still value our own security above all else, if we still believe that without “Jesus’ promise to come again… and what it means to us… we have nothing” (quarterly for Sabbath), then we are still a long ways from the mind of Christ. If we do not love others more than we love our own eternal security, than we must fall on our knees and pray that God will convert us and change us so that His self-sacrificing love becomes our self-sacrificing love, too.
The real reason Christians look forward to the “final restoration of unity” isn’t so we can have our eternal reward. It’s so the reign of sin will be over. But even as the reign of sin ends, countless numbers will be lost forever. And so God waits (and works) wanting none to perish. And so we wait (and work), too. Sacrificing our very lives in love for others. I pray that there is something higher we value than our own eternal life. And that “something” is the salvation of others. I pray that our true heart yearns for their salvation ahead of our own. It is the spirit of our “Home”. The spirit of Heaven is the spirit of unselfish love. All inhabitants willingly sacrificing their own place in heaven for you… and me. May we have heaven in our hearts is my prayer for us all. It is our true identity.
With brotherly love,
Jim