2 Peter 1:13, 14

2 Peter 1:13, 14

I consider it right, as long as I am in this earthly dwelling, to stir you up by way of reminder, knowing that the laying aside of my earthly dwelling is imminent, as also our Lord Jesus Christ has made known to me.

How often do we forget that this life is so limited? Even after we see first hand so much death in this world we are still convinced that we will live out a full 85 years on this earth. Death and pain happen to other people. We will not get sick and we most certainly will not die! This is the natural thought process. We are called as believers in Christ to hold an eternal view. We should live our lives as Peter did. We should expect the imminent return of Christ or rather our imminent departure from this world. Our lives are but vapors in the timeline of eternity. Paul had this view when he declared that for him “to die is gain but to live is Christ.” I have prayer this very prayer myself. I was in the hospital earlier this year with MRSA. I was in so much pain I could not stand without tears welling up in my eyes. I have scars to this day from a deadly infection that cannot be killed. I have never been much of a healthy person and had I been born 100 years earlier I would never have lived to be 23 years old. If some bug starts to go around I will be the first to get it! I cannot wait to escape this corrupted flesh and be glorified! But since God has seen fit to place me in a time where modern medicine can keep me alive I must acknowledge that for me to live is Christ. Selfishly I would love to just go home to heaven. I mean think about it, heaven, we will no longer sin causing God grief, we will have perfect fellowship with the only being who truly matters!

I want to stir up a reminder in you. We must keep in mind that Jesus Christ is our Lord and savior. We must live this life in view of what God has done for us. If we try to live this life for ourselves we will simply be disappointed because there is nothing that satisfies outside of Christ. What other gods are worth living for? The world seems to think that sex is the greatest God. The thing is with sex you are never satisfied unless You are within the purpose of God. Why do you think the world thinks that quantity is better than quality? Sex is an empty action without God and it only leaves You desiring more. This is true for all sin I simply chose sex because it is what is pushed in our face constantly from our culture. Not only does worshiping a false god like sex destroy our relationship with God but it kills our relationship with others. All sin is focused on self. We must escape ourselves and consider other people better than us. By that I mean spend your time praying for your fellow believers. Anytime you find yourself caught up in temptation you are focusing more on yourself than anything else. It is natural for us to seek our own self gratification but it is supernatural for us to seek the gratification of others. We must pour our lives out for others.

Jesus Christ is life. This world is the closest thing to hell we Christians will ever experience and for the non-Christian this is the closest thing to heaven. The world thinks they own pleasure but God is the author of pleasure and all the world can do is push us to experience it in an improper way, at an improper time, or to an improper degree. Sex is a beautiful gift God has given as a picture of the intimacy He wants to have with us. All the world does is worship the picture instead of the painter! Pleasure without God just drives us to look for more and more pleasure. It would be better for us Christians to be taken to heaven at the moment of salvation but we know that God keeps us here to show the people of this world that there is something greater. A love and a truth that is greater than the natural. We will be ridiculed, made fun of, scoffed, but we must endure. I will gladly live through hell on this earth if it means just one person can enter into heaven through my testimony. Better for us to suffer on this hellish earth and end up in heaven than to let people enjoy the pleasures for a season but spend eternity in hell! Do we love the lost?