You may be familiar with this verse from a hundred years ago....from C. T. Studd...."
"Only one life, 'twill soon be past,
Only what's done for Christ will last'."
As I posted on before....we have lost the poetic in life....replaced by cold and hard utterances....often from cold and hard hearts. I posted recently on this group of young....ministers....that surround John Piper....and whose articles....from which they themselves read....are often on the desiringgod.org website....and of which there is a new one today....from Pastor Scott Hubbard titled....When This Season Ends. How To Let Good Things Go.
This young pastor is addressing the issue of blessings that we may have right now....that may be gone tomorrow! Well we all know and accept that in an intellectual sense....although we do not seem to live in like manner.....but Hubbard is looking at this in a different way....in that these blessings may be temporary....but they are controlled by the Eternal....that although seasons for better or worse change....that the "memory" of our life will be resurrected in the eternity to come. He writes a lot better than I do....I'm describing my take on it the best that I can. Please go to desiringgod.org and listen for yourself.
It is so easy for me to write thoughts like this....too easy....for I have to walk away from the computer and live them....which invariably causes me consternation in that I cannot evidence what I proclaim as I want....but therein also is evidence that our true hope is in God's promises for the future....where we will no longer have these disappointments....or live in as Scott Hubbard put it...."a world without vanity, futility, or loss."
The author of this article brought to mind C. T. Studd's beautiful and true thoughts in his poem...."Only One Life".....but he concludes with his own admonition as we experience the temporal blessings of this life...."If even this fallen world holds moments as precious as these, what will eternity with him be like....[for]....far better days will begin when this life ends."
Note: The only reason I sit down to put out a post like this is to direct readers to John Piper's ministry.....or at other times Charles Spurgeon sermons....or Martyn Lloyd-Jones....ot his book or that book....or anything to break or melt the ice that covers us in the glacier of lukewarmness that has returned in the past few decades. Here's an example that just came to mind...a movie that we watched last evening....a secular movie on a biblical topic....with as much literary license as actual scripture....no frills....nothing to garner any awards....but a few moments that can exercise the mind....and others that can renew the awe we are already aware of....particularly that of a young Saul....filled with hatred....radically changed.....chosen.....born a second time from above. The film is titled....Saul: The Journey To Damascus....and we watched it on Roku.
UPDATE....Saturday: There is another timely message by one of these young men this morning on John Piper's.....desiringgod.org.....this time by David Mathis. The topic is....are you ready for this.....hell. Please go to the website and listen to....Hell Should Unsettle Christians....Embracing the Most Emotionally Difficult Doctrine. I want to add one concept to this topic of hell that I think has been a stumbling block. In our normal....human....minds.....we cannot get over a punishment that would last for ten thousand times ten thousand years....because of a rebellion in life for maybe as little as twenty or so years. So ultimately we reject any consideration of a literal hell.....but we might consider and meditate on this....We live in the creation of what is called time. That will end. What follows a linear....everlasting accumulation of thousands of millenia.....we not only do not know....but apparently we do not have the capability of understanding.....therefore it was not told to us. This is where trust comes in. Whatever that is that eternity will be....it will answer all of our questions and dispel all of our objections.....this because God is just. Do we trust him in this or do we not?
