Your Situation Is Very Temporary! Focus on the Eternal! By Kelly Durant
1 Peter 1:23-25
23 Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.24 For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:25 But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.
2 Corinthians 4:18
While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
2. Did you ever think like me as a kid? You smash your finger really hard and it is swollen and hurts so bad it takes you forever to go to sleep because of the throbbing and you just wish your accident would not be real? Then you wake up and to your horror your finger is still pulsating and hurting? You hoped your pain was just a nightmare that would be gone by the next day but instead you have to endure many days of pain until it heals. Have you gone through these types of things in your life? But thank God the finger healed and you no longer think about it!
All of us without a doubt have to endure things we detest in life. Sometimes pain is from your physical hurt body and other times pain is from your mind when you see no light at the end of the tunnel. And then other times pain comes from compassion and empathy; a transferring of despair injected into your being from the sufferings that another is enduring. Pain or oppression may be produced by cruel people not of God as well.
I do not like pain and thank God the word of God helps me get through it! 2 Corinthians 4:17 “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;” So when you pray, remind yourself that whatever it is you are going through is just “but for a moment”. In life nothing is easy but remind yourself that God has something better for you after it all passes! All things in this world are temporary, be they living quarters, driver’s licenses, or clothing styles. Speaking of passing, first let’s determine the nature of how temporary all things are!
3. The problem we have as humans is a perception one; a lack of a big picture perception. In the forest we often only see one big tree and we think all things will remain as they currently are forever and that we are going to be here on earth years without end. How easily we blindly forget that this world is not our home; that we are just passing through.
Problems or prosperity are very temporary! Look at it this way, losses come quickly! How many people gather their millions of dollars thinking they will always have them? Sadly some people gain prosperity by evil deeds, ripping off investors or tax paid money, ripping off their workers, even a few evil preachers rip off faithful givers, and others a few blocks from here are selling drugs or exploiting children and women as slaves in the sex trade! But how many times do we witness that these same rich people die young or lose it all! Jesus spoke about this. The wealth of the rich in Jesus time has pretty much vanished, right? Only Roman ruins remain in bankrupted Italy! No dynasty of Herod or Cesar lives today with wealth from their forefathers.
Luke 12:16 And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: 17 And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? 18 And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.20 But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? 21 So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.
There are many warnings in God’s Holy scriptures to the oppressive, ungenerous rich who invoke suffering. Commenting on this topic I am not referring to those who have wealth by God’s blessings because they worked hard to get it. I just wish to emphasize that wealth frequently tends to be very temporary! Jesus told the young rich ruler to “sell all that you have and give to the poor” but he failed the test. Jesus had compassion on the poor since the wealth of many is too extreme and excessive. It has always been this way in throughout history. Here I found a chart to show you just how rich the rich are in the USA. (see chart). James 5:1 “Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. 2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. 3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.” Why this warning? Jesus wants all to invest in the eternal kingdom of God which is an investment you will never loose! The main idea is that one must support God’s work in a manner that alleviates the pain and suffering of others!
4. So what has been established in this temporary moment in time spent with you discussing this matter? That all things pass away! Pain or pleasure, it all passes. Even this message will fade from your memory shortly, some after a few days, and for others it may vanish after about 5 minutes! I know there are many people who love spending hours in movies or playing dominoes or basketball, but to sit through a 20 minute sermon seems like an eternity to some! Working, studying, resting, all activities are always temporary. The Word of God however is forever but our circumstances are always temporary like the grass that dies and is forgotten.
What is predestined in life is that all situations will always be just for a moment in time, whether they be moments of pleasures and wealth, or moments of pain and suffering. The shifting of the power of nations has always been changing. Some of you older folks know the song, “The times, they are a changing”. Look how the world has changed in the past 50 years! Nothing is permanent, all things change but God never changes. No matter our up or down circumstances, His promises are true, God’s holiness remains, and His mercy and love endures towards us forever! His Word is forever Malachi 3:6 (a) For I am the Lord, I change not.
The problem with time and our situations and our perception of things is that time in our minds transforms into intense (or dull) recorded experiences relative to our feelings. In the good times time flies by fast, but in the bad times time drags on and on. You are familiar with Einstein’s theory of relativity, that all things around you appear to speed up or slow down according to your position of speed in relation to what’s near you. You must control how this moment affects you by believing God is here! The earth is spinning at about 1,000 miles per hour right now and yet we never seem to feel it, right? God is in control of your and my life and quite often we rarely take the time to sense it: feelings in moments are relative. There are many invisible forces of God at work within you and without you! God knows everything about you, even the number of hairs on your head! We must thank Him in every moment as He has a plan.
5. Just to point out how amazingly temporary you and your situation is I would like to share an interesting fact with you. Did you know nothing about your body’s cells are the same as they were a decade ago? Your body remakes all of its 50 to 75 trillion cells between every 7 to 10 years. You have been renewed by a few dozens of thousands of cells just in the time you have been sitting here listening to me! You are a conscious, self-regenerating miracle machine! http://www.livescience.com/33179-does-human-body-replace-cells-seven-years.html
Life has a start and an end because we live in the ever changing material world; a world of highly sophisticated organized bio and physical matter. You were born as an innocent baby but overtime your increasing size, age, and circumstances forced you to change and you become responsible for yourself. No one can stop the changes and the seasons of life, it is God’s design as so precisely articulated in Ecclesiastes 3. No one can change the fact that ”All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth…” The reality is you and I have a beginning and you and I will have an end. We may gain a temporary abundance or we might be in a time of the “lean cows”. But all circumstances are what? Very temporary! Paul says, Philippians 4:11Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. God can inspire us to be happy despite our changing conditions.
Take into account apart from your temporary body you also have a spirit, a form of a piece of God’s consciousness. God is eternal, so if you have a spirit that will be released from this temporary body one day, where will your eternal spirit spend eternity? All cultures have been obsessed with this destiny since the beginning. Many cultures obsessed over if they would be found holy and worthy enough to abide eternally with God. This worry can be over once you accept Jesus, who is eternal and proved it by his resurrection! John 10:28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. Jesus is an eternal circumstance changer! Before Jesus you paid with a second death for disobeying God’s laws, but now you are forgiven so you start over having a clean slate. We must concern ourselves much more over the eternal things than over our temporary situations. The soul’s eternal situation matters more than the body’s temporary one!
6. And I am sorry to have to warn you but the connection you may currently have with God may not remain so strong unless you work at it. In any relationship it is up to you to cultivate it and keep it going. Your closeness to God depends on you and your spiritual life development, whether you are praying and getting filled with His word reading it daily and obeying it living life in holiness.
The 9th doctrine of the Salvation Army states “That continuance in a state of salvation depends upon continued obedient faith in Christ”. Scripture confirms with many real life stories how some people remained faithful yet others lost their connection with God. Unfaithful Israel of old was referred to as being like an unfaithful harlot in the Old Testament which exposed the sad reality of a people not remaining in God. People have a choice daily to keep their love for God and Jesus going or not. Whatever choices you make determines your eternal future! Revelation 2:10 (b)… be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.
John 8:31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;” We choose to continue on with our faith growth in God’s Word or not. Also, it is clear that we must time and again depend on the Holy Spirit to renew us. Titus 3:5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;” It is up to you and I to get renewed and washed clean from our sins frequently! We need exposure to the eternal things of God to gain the power to move past our temporary contaminated human condition!
7. And on the bright side, let me give you an example of how an unpleasant temporary situation can be made into a good one. General Catherine Booth, the wife of the founder of the Salvation Army, when she was around 12 years old in the mid-1800s was bedridden and sick for about a year. What did she do? She read the Bible several times over, and later over again and again to add up to more than a dozen times. She applied her temporary situation as a time to prepare herself, and the Word of God formed her into a powerful spiritual leader! Like it or not we must accept the fact that God wants to use everything we go through, and all that we have been through, for His good purpose in the here and now.
Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. The factor is though, we must be in His will because if not we will have suffered everything in vain; years of temporary pain can be for nothing if we are ignoring what God has for us to do in the present.
8. How many of you feel like you are in a dark tunnel right now? When you are in a long unexpected tunnel it may be easy to forget the better times from before and the long bumpy detour of setbacks seems to go on forever, right?
Maybe you are temporarily down due your own poor choices, or possibly the abusive ones in positions of power could be to blame for provoking your circumstances, but God knows all and God sees injustices. It is a fact that the rich are exponentially getting much richer in this past decade while the middle class is now the poor class, and the poor class is suffering greatly! Despite discouragement we have our hope in God’s promises. Here is a powerful Psalm;
Psalm 37 1. Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity. 2 For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb.
3 Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.
5 Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass. 6 And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday.
7 Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass. 8 Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret not thyself in any wise to do evil.
9. Many people, more than you ever imagined, have lived through many months of sickness, many years of financial drought, or many weeks of depression being stressed over hard situations. But what we must not lose sight of is that God has a purpose for all things that each one of us goes through. There is a light at the end of the tunnel that is always temporary!
My wife and I for our 14 years of time as missionaries in South America literally cried in prayer many times when we seemed one step away from being homeless with several small kids to take care of. But God always came though time and time again and supplied by some miraculously unexpected means! Our situations turned out to be only temporary! I know by experience you can improve your circumstances for good things to come your way by trusting in Jesus. When you are born of God in Him, you gain that which never corrupts, and you will see that God has your back, and that in all situations you may despair in you will always only be there in that hard spot temporarily! God is preparing you and me for the eternal!
Now we are closing, and my time with you has been temporary. Life is very temporary! All things will pass! Keep in mind that all the evil people will pass away too! Jesus will return and the word of God and His kingdom of love and light will reign and endure forever! Don’t worry about all the oppressive rich and political powers as they are very temporary. All poor conditions and injustices are temporary! Our hope is real in the Word of God. Heaven is real and eternal! Live claiming the promises of God, and know that His Son Jesus who resurrected will also resurrect you and you will reign forever and ever incorruptible with Him!
