Sunday, October 18, 2009

Manifest In You Hereafter

Greetings Friend.

Much time has passed since I last wrote. My days have been filled with trials from without and struggles within. Perhaps your days have been the same. It will be this way till our pilgrimage on earth is done and we fully enter eternity and God’s presence. Yet, during our brief earthly pilgrimage eternity, having entered us, wants its perfect and complete work, wants to manifest itself over our temporal and fleshly nature. The occurrences of this work are most often found in the recesses of our hearts.

I’m rereading John Arndt’s book True Christianity and found the following section healthy for thoughtful reflection on my heart’s condition as related to things that pass away and things which remain. Perhaps God will use it in some similar fashion in your life. Enjoy.

God’s mercy, peace and love be multiplied to you.

Carl



The apostle Paul “calls the Christian, ‘a man of God,’ because he is born of God, and lives in God, and therefore is the son and heir of God; as, on the other hand, a man of the world, is one who lives in conformity to the world, who ‘has his portion in this life, and whose belly is filled with the hid treasure’ of the earth.”

Honestly, which do you see as more descriptive of your life?

Dear reader, even though one professes to be a Christian, we must at times be honest and confess that we are perhaps “more careful of a weak and perishing body, than we are of an imperishable, immortal soul.”

Given this, let us at this present time, wanting to be truly careful of our imperishable and immortal souls more than our weak and perishing bodies, let us consider: (1) the source of our affections, (2) the object(s) of our affections, and (3) the implications of our affections.

“The love and joy, the wealth and honors of the true Christian, are circumscribed only by eternity itself; for, ‘where his treasure is, there will his heart be also’ (Luke 12:34). From the lust and love of the world, on the contrary, nothing can result but eternal damnation. ‘The world passeth away and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever’ (I John 2:17): and hence, St. John calls upon the faithful entirely to withdraw their affections from the world; saying, ‘Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world’ (I John 2:15). These and similar considerations powerfully convince us, that God will not permit us to fix our affections on any creature whatsoever.

But this will more fully appear from the following reflections:

Love is the very heart of a man, and the noblest of all his affections; hence, it is due to God only as the supreme object and sovereign Good.

It is absolute folly to love temporal things, which cannot love us; whereas the infinitely blessed God deserves to be loved alone, since from a pure principle of love, he created us unto eternal life, and has, to the same purpose, redeemed and sanctified us.

Like things are naturally loved by their like. Hence, God made us after his own image, in order that we might love Him; and that, next to himself, we might love our neighbor, created after the same image.

The human soul resembles a mirror, representing every object indifferently that is placed before it, whether it be of heaven or of earth. Therefore turn your soul wholly and only to God, that this image may be fully expressed in it.

The patriarch Jacob, when dwelling in Mesopotamia, far removed from his native soil, never abandoned his purpose to return and, at length, after twenty years’ service, demanded his wives and wages; and, cheered by the recollection of the place of his nativity, returned thither. So should your soul, amidst the various engagements of this life, and the hurry of outward employments, long without ceasing after your heavenly fatherland.

Man is made either better or worse by that which he loves. He that loves God partakes freely of the divine virtue and goodness that resides in Him; but he that loves the world is defiled with all those sins and evils which attend it.

When King Nebuchadnezzar was too much controlled by the love of the world, he lost the very form of a man, and degenerated into that of a beast (Dan. 4:33). So all men, blotting from their hearts the image and love of God, are transformed as it respects their inward man into the nature of brutes. For surely those who wholly surrender themselves to the love of this world are no better.

Lastly, that which a man has loved here, and carried about in his heart, shall be manifested in him hereafter; and with this he shall associate himself forever, whether it be God or the world. If the world has been the object of his love in this life, it will never leave him hereafter, but will prove his death and his torment to all eternity.”

(The above taken from True Christianity, John Arndt, Book 1, Chapter 18, Pietan Publications)


Your days, like a tale that is told, pass away;
The lusts of the earth that beset you are vain;
Too precious your time for such trifling and play:
Then employ it that glory at last you may gain.

From the stream of your life, so fleeting and strange,
Draw forth every day something good that may last;
From the trifles of earth turn away: they shall change,
And no blessing shall leave when the vision is past.

Awake! Seek thy constant refreshment in God;
Sow the seed that will yield stores of joy to thy soul,
Redeeming the time both at home and abroad,
And thy peace shall endure, like a river shall roll.

(Author unknown)