“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” (1 John 4:18)
I have not been employed in the work force for quite sometime now, and because of that each morning when I awaken it takes several moments for me to realize what day it is, there is no anchor to rest upon in that sense anymore. Time, to a degree, has become irrelevant to my daily excursion, it holds little meaning towards what the Almighty has called me to do at this point in my life.
I would ask that you contemplate that last statement, for where we are going, to the same degree, time will be irrelevant, not nonexistent, but unlike anything we have experienced before. “And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.” (Rev. 22:5) This verse speaks of our home, the new Jerusalem, but you must remember, there will still be an earth, a moon and a sun and the sun will still only shine on one half of the earth.
We will never experience physical pain again, “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.” (1 Cor. 15:50)
As for fear, at least in the form of the death of flesh, that will be gone. “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.” (Rev. 20:6)
There will be the recognition of the passage of time, but not in the sense of the sun rising and falling, save for when we are on this earth, but when something occurs and then is no longer happening. No different than this poorly written letter, I was led to write it, it is being written as I pen these words, and then it will be completed, time has passed.
We have no ability to comprehend eternal life, it is not possible while we are here in the flesh on this earth, for we know we have an end, and that end is the grave. We move towards it with rapid speed, yet few do so with anticipation, and so they attempt to fill up that time with what we consider needful causes, to not let a minute go to waste, for Genesis 3:19 is a known truth, even to the lost. “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
Fear and time go together, the difference between the lost and the saved, I dare say even between many of the saved, is how can I use this time to glorify the Lord God, how can I use what time I have been allotted to lift up the name of the Lord Jesus Christ? “LORD, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am.” (Psalm 39:4)
Men of God have always felt this urgency, this knowledge that their time here is coming to an end, that the work that has been set before them will no longer be required of them. There is no need to witness of the Lord in heaven, there are no lost souls to reach out to, no one to reprove and correct, none to plead with about the salvation of the Lord to all who will call upon Him. Those times will end.
Grief and sorrow will not pass away immediately, for a thousand years we will watch as mankind continues to grow further and further away from the Lord, and at least in my opinion, we will be working in this arena during that time. But even that time will pass. What eternity holds we are not told, but one thing will never change, time will always be in one respect a part of our existence. It really does not matter what day it is; we have been given commandments, and in love we fulfill them.
One day your time will be up, the work that the Lord has set before you will be completed, you will go home when you reach the end of the path He has set you upon. The question must be this then, are you running the race no matter what day it is, whether the sun is up, or it is the dark of night? We are not to be waiting to go home, we are to be working until that final day.
