The fourth beatitude, covered in Part V, also offers stimulating spiritual truths. First, and an encouragement for us now, don’t crash-dive into fear and anxiety over COVID-19. Irritating as it is interrupting our daily life. Debilitating as it can be in invading our health. Dangerous as it can be by causing death from its complications, don’t be terrified.
It’s perfectly harmless compared to entering God’s Presence without Christ’s forgiveness. No escape from God’s wrath is then possible. Banishment from God then is inevitable. Second, instead of ignoring Christ’s Return as a distant event, with no results in daily life, think once a day that it could be THAT day. The effect will impact our thinking and behavior, our habits and our relationships. For...ask yourself: if I knew Jesus would come NOW—and once he comes, forgiveness isn’t available—would I want to SEE him just having sinned? Third, rewards exist for those actively and faithfully serving Jesus in discipleship. We can speculate the manner in which spiritual service, rule and authority under Christ will be enjoyed. Think instead of the one reward constantly available to every person in Heaven: abbreviating Steve Green’s song: God our one desire, of whom our hearts will never tire. Seeing the immortal, invisible, Almighty God in all his Glory! But how? Mortals cannot see what’s invisible, even in their immortal state. Almighty God remains invisible to them. Unless...God will make himself Visible in a Glorified Human Being. Which is exactly what he has done in Jesus Christ, as seen in Revelation 1:12-18. Remember...Jesus came as GOD with us, Matthew 1:23. He came “in very nature God,” Philippians 2:6. He manifested himself in “the image of the invisible God,” Colossians 1:15, and in “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” Hebrews 1:3.Once you saw Jesus in ministry you looked at the face of God in the Flesh, John 5:22-23, 14:8-9 but two of many verses. Given that truth, remember the effect his Resurrected Body had on unbelievers: Roman soldiers at his tomb “were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men” Matthew 28:4. Little wonder then that the apostle John, taken by surprise when he turned to see the VOICE speaking to him, SAW instead the Ineffable Person: about whom he wrote in hopelessly inadequate language what human language can never express, and only glorified forgiven mortals will ever see, the completely inexpressible Glory of Almighty God in Jesus Christ’s Glorified person in human form. Look, you Redeemed: In Christ’s Mysterious, Glorious Person, BEHOLD your GOD! Amen. Hallelujah!
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