Category: Devotion of the Day

HERE OR HEREAFTER?

A crown…unto all them also that love his appearing. …Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world.
II Timothy 4:8, 10

If you love his appearing you are not in live with this present world. “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” “Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.”

Paul had set his sights higher than this passing scene. Demas would have his portion here and now. Paul was a pilgrim and a stranger, not only in love with Jesus but with His appearing. I wonder how many really love Jesus’ return. One does not sense it much in churches building the Kingdom but not really joying in the coming of the King. And fundamentalists who revel in detailed programs of that event do not always seem to “love” it. Their interest is academic but not affectionate.

Demas sometimes lines up with Paul temporarily, but soon forsakes him. You cannot love and live for two worlds at a time. The love of the world and the love of the Father simply do not coexist in the same heart.

Are you in love with this age or with the one to come? It makes a difference!

KNOWN AND UNKNOWN

The world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.
I John 3:1

I never knew you.
Matthew 7:23

This world new not our Lord. “There standeth one among you whom ye know not.” So said John the Baptist. “If thou hadst known…If thou knewest…If ye had known” – so runs Jesus’ constant refrain while He was among us.

Because the world knew Him not it knows us not. “Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you” (I Jno. 3:13). It not only does not know us, it hates us. “I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them” (Jno. 17:14). We cannot love the Word and be loved by the world.

But what matters the hatred of this world if He knows and loves us? Most fearful of all pronouncements ever to fall on human ears is that word to those who profess to know Him but whose works deny Him: “I never knew you.”

“The Lord knoweth them that are his” (II Tim. 2:19). This world makes much of “knowing the right people.” What matters is to know God.