The Secret to Not Losing Heart - Pt 3

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18 ESV).

Now, go back a bit with me. The basis of your day-by-day renewal and not losing heart is mainly unseen and eternal. The fallen nature and the fallen humanity oppress you and cause you to waste away. Those things are painfully visible. Don’t focus on them. If you do, you will be filled with despair. Look on the unseen. Look on the eternal. I have been privileged to see many beautiful landscapes. Perhaps the most majestic were to be seen when I visited Alaska and saw first-hand the Great Alaskan Range. Majestic is simply not adequate to describe their beauty. They took me to thoughts of the eternal nature of God and His promise of my immortality. That knowledge is a help in the midst of suffering. It helps me to see the unseen. This is what the apostle means when he tells us that we need not lose heart because we are being renewed day by day. We can know that this “light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.” This is that which God is working to our good in every circumstance. All our affliction, even if it lasts a lifetime, is light and momentary and totally meaningful. So we do not lose heart. So the truth Paul wants us to put in our heads day by day so that we will be renewed and not lose heart is this: Compared to endless ages of ages, these seventy or eighty years are as nothing. Compared to the weight and greatness and wonder of the glory we will see and we will be, this inglorious, shameful, painful affliction is light. His yoke is easy and his burden, even a lifetime of affliction, is light. And remember this is Paul talking, not Don Emmitte. He had really suffered. And then comes what is perhaps the most amazing “because” of all: “This light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (v. 17). This glory, that God will show us and give us, is beyond imagination. That is what I mean by saying every moment of your affliction is meaningful. It has meaning. It is doing something. It is bringing about something glorious. You can’t see this. You are tempted to think, this suffering is meaningless. That’s what you feel if you focus on the “seen.” The apostle simply says, look to the things that are unseen. Nothing in your pain is meaningless. It is all preparing us for a weight of glory, a special glory. All of this comes because of that pain. So, I am prompted to not lose heart!