Wednesday, August 27, 2008

When we look at the eternal killing fields with unveiled faces

If you were to wake up in heaven and find that your parents, siblings, and best friend were not there? How could that place be heaven for you? From where would you derive the ecstatic joy and gladness that constitutes our idea of eternal bliss in the presence of God?

The answer is difficult, but simple.

Jesus.

Unless we get our minds and hearts around the perfection and majesty of the glory of Christ, we miss the entire point of our salvation and what it means to enter into eternal bliss. On this side of glory, our self-centred humanistic flesh draws us away from basking in the glory of God as the ultimate good. Our eyes are only for ourselves, for our humanity and our sentimental thoughts of secondary happiness.

One day, from the viewing gallery of heaven perhaps we will see many of our loved ones perishing in eternal torment, receiving the just retribution for crimes committed against the holiness of God. Looking with unveiled faces, perfected and glorified in the consuming fire of our Saviour, with all sin and flesh purged completely from our being, what will we do?

We will exalt in the glory of God with such immense ecstasy and joy that all of our petty sentiments of the joy of salvation in our present time will shamefully pale in comparison. We will rejoice in the vindication of God and in the wonder of his great mercy in Christ in which we were selected from before the foundation of the world.

To God alone be the glory.

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