1 Corinthians 2:9 But, as it is written,
"What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him"—English Standard Version (ESV)
Over the past few days, the word "prepared" has come up three different times in my devotions. Yesterday we considered how God is preparing a place for His prepared people. Today's verse tells us something that describes something of those preparations without letting us in on the secret. It is so great that He doesn't want to spoil the surprise. But the verse tells us that it is going to be something beyond our wildest imagination and blow away any expectations that we may have.
Think of that "no eye has seen, heard, or imagined what God has prepared, what God has in store for us, those He has called His own. Not even the experts, the greatest theologians on philosophers have a clue (see The Message below).
David Jeremiah writes, "when we see beautiful photographs of the earth's natural wonders, we are often stunned at the awesomeness of God's creation. Amidst such natural beauty, we are often shocked when we remember we are looking at a creation cursed by sin. If earth is so beautiful in a cursed state, how much more beautiful will it be when the whole creation has been redeemed?"
We can take those thoughts to another level and think of our personalities and our relationships minus our sinful, selfish nature. There will be a time, for eternity, when we can truly live and truly love as we ought to love. He's preparing that for us now, for those who love Him now, imperfect though we may be. Let us do our best to prepare to be amazed.
In Christ,
Mike
Follow the Verse of the Day blog at http://mikesvotd.blogspot.com
Eph 1:7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace NIV
1 Corinthians 2:9
The Message (MSG)
6-10 We, of course, have plenty of wisdom to pass on to you once you get your feet on firm spiritual ground, but it's not popular wisdom, the fashionable wisdom of high-priced experts that will be out-of-date in a year or so. God's wisdom is something mysterious that goes deep into the interior of his purposes. You don't find it lying around on the surface. It's not the latest message, but more like the oldest—what God determined as the way to bring out his best in us, long before we ever arrived on the scene. The experts of our day haven't a clue about what this eternal plan is. If they had, they wouldn't have killed the Master of the God-designed life on a cross. That's why we have this Scripture text:
No one's ever seen or heard anything like this,
Never so much as imagined anything quite like it—
What God has arranged for those who love him.
But you've seen and heard it because God by his Spirit has brought it all out into the open before you.
No comments:
Post a Comment