1
Corinthians 15:58
Jeff Lampl
I have often wondered what the connection is between . . . .
. .
1st Corinthians 15:58 “Therefore,
my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give
yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in
the Lord is not in vain.”
. . . . .and everything that comes before it, where the
apostle describes how bodily resurrection works.
How does it follow that since I’ll be resurrected to new
bodily life one day I should conclude that everything I do now matters?
Why would it not be the exact opposite? If everything I do now will be done away with
and then replaced, then why would anything I do now matter except in terms of
getting myself and others into heaven?
Here’s the crucial answer that I learned way too late.
What the Bible tells us is that the things and people of this
world will not be replaced, rather they will resurrected, renewed, and
restored which is exactly what Peter
said at Pentecost (Acts
3:21).
Once we get our “r” words right, we realize that if God is
planning to do for all of creation (not just people –
“All things”) what He did for Jesus, and once we learn the cost to Him of
doing this (the cross), then we realize that everything must matter a great
deal to God.
In other words, God isn’t doing away with people, or the
material world or nature or work or family or relationships or learning or
anything (other than the corruption of God’s good world) at all, rather all of
it matters so much to him that he can’t do anything but keep it, fix it up, and
restore it and us to mint condition.
Kathy tells me that I am a hoarder. Even I can’t throw away things that have
meaning to me! But God doesn’t just keep
it all, he restores it!
Therefore, if/since this is true, I have to ask myself, “how
then should I approach my day to day life now?”
Here’s my answer:
1. I may think my job, a certain person, littering,
the words I say, etc. don’t matter. But
I am wrong because they matter to God.
I may think my efforts to help ungrateful people are wasted and in vain,
but I am wrong. So much stuff that I think
doesn’t matter or is a waste do matter and are not a waste to God.
2. If I’m a believer that means I’ve joined team
Jesus and as a member of his team everything that I am tasked with matters
because the object of that task matters to Jesus. If he’s a restorer of all things that means
I am too, regardless of how big a waste of time any of my tasks look to
me. When I talk to you for example, it
is my job to talk to you in a way that brings God’s love and hope to you. If I am doing a job, I must do that job or
project in such a way that it is done with excellence, that it is done with the
purpose of being a good for others, and that it is done, as much as it depends
on me, for the welfare of human beings.
3. Finally, when I act, think and relate as a
member of team Jesus, that means that no matter how much of what I do or say
feels like a complete waste, it’s not.
I am wrong to let myself think that.
Because Jesus
is making all things new and because it is he working through me that means
that “nothing I do for the Lord is ever wasted or in vain”.
4. A fourth reason is that full restoration of all
things to their intended purpose and means the removed all flaws, sin, and
evil. This does mean that people who
reject God’s forgiveness and cleansing will not enter God’s New World. They will have excluded themselves. These are people we encounter every day of
our lives. It is a reality for every
believer that in our interactions with all people we are either helping to move
them toward an eternal destiny of either glory or horror. This is the burden of every believer, what
C.S. Lewis called the “Weight of Glory”.
In short, there is no one on planet earth, no one who ever
lived, no matter how great in the eyes of the world, who necessarily has a more
meaningful, purposeful, powerful, effective, and blessed life than you, if you
are on team Jesus.
Follow on Twitter
@jefflampl
No comments:
Post a Comment