There was an old saying at the mission that rings true now some 40 years later. “There’s nothing in it for you.”
I didn’t really understand then just how profound that simple statement was. But Time is a faithful teacher. And as I look now in the mirror and see a much more wrinkled image with a head laden with a heavy hoary frost, I take more time to contemplate the increasing fragility of my physical state. It seems that the reality of my own mortality crowds daily into my thoughts.
In that mirror I also see in my own eyes how the years have neutralized the piss and vinegar that I was so full of back then in my 20’s and 30’s.
As my earthly frame grows weaker, that old saying–how that there’s nothing in this walk with God for you–rings truer. It is making so much more sense now as I am staring down the time when I just may have to depart this old earthly body before Christ returns to this earth to set up His kingdom.
For, you see, in those younger years I thought that surely I would be alive when the LORD would come back. Christ did say that “whosoever lives and believes in Me shall never die” (John 11: 26). And, that “there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom” (Mt. 16: 28). Those destined not to taste death would have to be the generation of believers alive when He returned to earth. Anyway, I always thought that I would be one of them.
But now, as the years tick on, and my body creaks with age more every day, I must take this into real consideration–this “falling asleep,” this “shuffling off of this mortal coil.”
And, yet, I now realize that God has this death of the physical body hanging over us for a reason. We know that He gives life and He takes life. Our very breath is in His hand. And it is this impending destiny with dust that helps us understand the futility of living for one’s self. The self just cannot see us through, for our earthly bodies must betray us, for that is the very nature of the physical body formed of the dust of this planet. The house of dirt was made for us by God on purpose not to last. It is temporary housing.
God fashioned our bodies to be as ephemeral as butterfly wings. He deliberately formed them to be fragile in hope that we might sense someday our own vanity before death came knocking. As we see our bodies decay and crumble with age, He hopes that we will see the futility of living for the self.
Our fragility betrays our pretentious egos that always seem to shout, “Hey, everybody, seriously, I really am something!” But that self-centered imagination breeds the ultimate deception, for “when a man thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself” (Gal. 6: 3).
And we have all been guilty of that thought; it is in the spiritual genes of old man Adam and his offspring. Yes, we are initially made that way by the Creator in hopes that we would see the purposelessness of selfish thinking and be humbled so that we could all realize one truth: Every man is created for only one thing, and it is not for self-glorification; it is for God-glorification.
And if we are blessed to be chosen by Him to reveal this truth to, then we are coming much closer to where we need to be in our walk on earth before our Creator.
There’s nothing in it for you. For everything in the vastness of the universe and here on earth is for God and His pleasure. This is the great sticking point with natural-minded man, who earnestly believes that he is the center of the cosmos. Secular humanism is the new many-headed false god. “Thou shalt not have any other gods before Me.” Especially our self.
“For of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things” (Rom. 11: 36). Breaking it down, all things are of Him; they came from Him, and through His creative power all things (including us) exist. And in the end, all things are created by Him for His pleasure and glory.
For instance, Him delivering us from utter degradation and destruction, and us returning and thanking Him and telling others about His saving love and power–He loves that and gets glory out of it.
“All things were created by Him, and for Him” (Col. 1: 16). But God does not become a pompous little jerk like natural man when he gets power. No. God is LOVE. He created us so that He could bring us to a place spiritually, where His essence and nature (which is Love) could be multiplied–eventually to fill the whole universe with LOVE! Our gratitude toward Him for our deliverance from sin is the fertile soil where the seed of Love can grow.
And God-in-human-form is our example and showed us the way. Jesus (Yahshua) tasted death for us all so that we would not be banished to the dusty tombs of oblivion. “For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory” (Hebr. 2: 9-10).
That’s the plan. It is all for Him, so that He may glorify those who realize that it is all for Him. He will share Himself and all His glory with the overcomers, even to the point of sharing His throne with them (Rev. 3: 21).
It is all for the Creator. When we turn that page in the book of our minds, then joy and serenity will overtake us, for we will have embraced the heart of God with arms of humility, born of His true nature, Love.
{For more on this subject, check out this article: https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/gods-endgame-where-this-life-on-earth-is-leading-us/ }
Kenneth Wayne Hancock
Immortality Road 