‘For God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you. He is your example, and you must follow in his steps. He never sinned, nor ever deceived anyone. He did not retaliate when he was insulted, nor threaten revenge when he suffered. He left his case in the hands of God, who always judges fairly. He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. By his wounds you are healed. Once you were like sheep who wandered away. But now you have turned to your Shepherd, the Guardian of your souls,’ ( 1 Peter 2.21-25, NLT).
‘All honour to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for it is by His boundless mercy that God has given us the privilege of being born again. Now we live with a wonderful expectation because Jesus Christ rose again from the dead. For God has reserved a priceless inheritance for His children. It is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond reach of change and decay. And God in His mighty power, will protect you until you receive this salvation, because you are trusting Him. It will be revealed on the last day for all to see. So be truly glad! There is wonderful joy ahead, even though it is necessary for you to endure many trials for a while. These trials are only to test your faith, to show that it is strong and pure. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold – and your faith is far more precious to God than mere gold. So, if your faith remains strong after being tried by fiery trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honour on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world,’ (1 Peter 3-7, NLT).
We have an incorruptible inheritance; it can’t spoil, it’s kept in heaven for us. We all have sinned, we all need salvation from sin and deliverance out of this world. But in this life, we must go through suffering. Our faith has to be tested and be found to the praise and glory of God when Christ appears. The purity of our faith must be tested, just as gold is purified by fire. Our reward for trusting Christ will be the salvation of our souls.
God always intended, from the beginning, from the very foundation of the world, before God created Heaven and earth, God had already planned – another kingdom! Another world, something far more glorious! Here is only our training school, this is only our preparation... Jesus taught us that, for what we do here, we will receive a reward there! There are rewards in the Kingdom of God based on our faithfulness on earth! By what we achieve down here! Our whole experience here is looking forward to something future! The Christian life you have at the moment is not the end, it’s only the beginning. What we have down here is not the whole Glory of Salvation, it’s not the whole Glory of what we have in Christ – it’s just a foretaste, a glimpse into the future of what will be ours!
‘For your know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom paid was not mere gold or silver. He paid for you with the precious lifeblood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. God chose Him for this purpose long before the world began, but now in the final days, He was sent to the earth for all to see. And He did this for you,’ (1 Peter 1.19-20, NLT).
If only you could understand and see the greatness, the riches of Glory, that is coming from Christ and which is beyond everything we can imagine! This is what I pray for you – that you will see, with your spiritual eyes, what our hope is, what the Glory is, the riches of that Glory which is the inheritance we have in Christ both now and in the world to come!
I want you to look up, look beyond! I’ve had suffering, I’ve had pain, I’ve lost my parents, one brother, my sister, my wife – but I don’t weep, I look beyond, because I know there is a day of reunion in the Kingdom with those who have passed away before! Our hope transcends, comes above all our earthly panic and pain!