“REMEMBER JESUS CHRIST . . . the gospel for which I am suffering and wearing fetters like a criminal. But the word of God is not fettered. Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation in Christ Jesus with its eternal glory” (2 Tim. 2:8–10). “The salvation . . . with its eternal glory”—how could he talk about salvation and eternal glory when he lay undelivered in prison chains? Yes, how could he? In only one way: “Remember Jesus Christ”! He was doing just that—he was remembering Jesus Christ. Had he put his attention on the injustice of his situation, on the hardships he was going through, on the biting of the iron in his flesh, he could not have talked about a salvation that went with eternal glory. He would have chewed on his resentments, would have curled his lips and said, “My God, why?” Instead, he talked of eternal glory, and the eternal glory stretched into the now. It was glory now.
He used the word “glory” not as a future anticipation, but as a present experience. Remembering and looking at Jesus, everything was glory, not as an exclamation, but as an experience. This happens today in similar circumstances when the eyes are on Christ instead of on the self. A Canadian missionary contracted leprosy while tearing down a leper house. The disease came out in England when he was on his way home on furlough. Arriving in Canada, he was isolated in a log cabin in a wilderness. A missionary friend from India went to see him, and as they talked of the old days in India, pity and compassion crept into the missionary’s voice. The leper stopped him: “You are feeling sorry for me. You shouldn’t. These walls are filled with the glory of the Lord. I have never been so happy in my life. It is glory.” The glory world invades this world of suffering and pain, and makes it heaven now.
O Jesus, my Lord, I remember Thee, and remembering Thee, all my pinpricks are naught beside Thy nailprints and all my injustices are nothing compared to putting the Redeemer to death. May my littleness be lost in Thy greatness. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: The eternal glory reaches back into the now—reaches back into me. I walk in it!
