Morning By Morning #345

So we will be with the Lord forever.

1 Thessalonians 4:17

From the pen of Charles Spurgeon:

Even our sweetest times with Christ seem so short and fleeting! One moment our eyes see Him and we rejoice with “inexpressible and glorious joy” (1 Peter 1:8), but so quickly we don’t see Him, for our beloved withdraws from us. Like a young deer He leaps across a ridge of mountains separating us from Him; He is gone to the higher land of spices and no longer feeds among the lilies.

If today He stoops to bless us

With a sense of pardoned sin,

He tomorrow may distress us,

Make us feel the plague within.

John Kent, 1766 – 1843

Oh, how sweet to consider the time when we will not behold Him from a distance, but “shall see [Him] face to face” (1 Cor. 13:12)—when He will not be as a constant traveler only tarrying for the night, but will eternally embrace us with His glory! For a short season we will not see Him, but:

Millions of years our wondering eyes,

Shall o’er our Savior’s beauties rove;

And myriad ages we’ll adore,

The wonders of His love.

Author unknown

In heaven we will have no interruptions from unmet needs or sin, no weeping will blur our eyes, no earthly business will distract our happy thoughts, and nothing will hinder us from gazing forever with unwearied eyes on “the sun of righteousness” (Mal. 4:2). If it is so sweet to see Him now and again here, imagine how wonderful it will be to gaze on His blessed face forever, to never have even a cloud come between us, and never have to turn our eyes away to look on a world of weariness and woe!

Blessed day, when will you dawn? Rise, O never-setting sun! Earthly joys may leave us when they will, for this day will make glorious amends. If dying is simply entering into uninterrupted communion with Jesus, then indeed “to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21) and the darkness of “death has been swallowed up in victory” (1 Cor. 15:54).

From the pen of Jim Reimann:

It is so easy to complain about the difficulties of this life, but Paul said, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:18). Think about these amazing words!

Paul had been blessed with a glimpse of heaven unlike anything we have ever seen. He described his experience as having seen “visions and revelations from the Lord” (2 Cor. 12:1); as having been “caught up to the third heaven” (v. 2); as being “caught up to paradise” and having “heard inexpressible things” (v. 4); and finally, as having been given “surpassingly great revelations” (v. 7).

Remember! This man—who saw and heard all this—said, “Our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us”!