WHAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM
Author: Sakkie Parsons
Translated from Afrikaans
Translator: Robin Barker
Someone wrote to me, as have so many done, who wonder concerning the same subject, namely:
He wonders why it is going so terribly difficult at times since he is a child of our Lord.
I share with you my answer to him:
Our Lord has never said to us that this life will always be ‘moonshine and roses’ (without any trials or problems).
My knowledge of life is, that the greater your potential is for our Lord, how exponentially more difficult satan makes it for you to live up to that potential and as in Job’s case, our Lord praises/brags about us to satan, even before we have been through the test, because he knows in advance the outcome of the test He has intrusted to us.
If we hold onto our Lord, an eternal life awaits us with such wonderful glory that one cannot imagine with a human mind.
JAMES 1:2-4
2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,[a] whenever you face trials of many kinds,
3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.
4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
Everyone who has accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour shall naturally inherit eternal life but eventually we will receive our reward according to how faithfully we stayed to Jesus Christ throughout all the trouble and heart aches we had to go through on this earth.
How exactly it will work, I do not know but the Word tells me what will happen and that is good enough for me.
1 COR 3:11-15
11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.
12 If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw,
13 their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. (It will be tested by God in accordance with His values)
14 If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward.
15 If it is burned up (Not found acceptable to our Lord), the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames (What exactly is meant by ‘as escaping through the flames’, I do not know, but I certainly do not want to go into Heaven that way).REV 22:12 “Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done.”
Our Lord says to us:
JOHN 16:33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
What awaits me if I hold true to the end?
REV 3:21 To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne.
What this actually means ‘to sit with me’, I do not know what this all entails but what I do know is this:
1 COR 2:9 However, as it is written: What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”—the things God has prepared for those who love him—
I understand from what you have just read, it does not matter how wonderfully I imagine my life with Jesus, I will never be able to understand the true marvelousness thereof with my small mind.
Do I easily talk about hardship, because I may not know what it is like to suffer hardship?
I could have shared a lot of my life with you, from where welfare had to take my brothers and sisters with me from our parents but I will suffice with a few instances in my life.
I was born with an eye disorder and was diagnosed as blind, but I had enough sight to ride a bicycle in the street.
In the seventies of the previous century I became aware that my eyesight was deteriorating very quickly and I knew, because it happened to many of my friends –
I was going to be blind very soon and I was never going to see my children, wife, or other people’s faces and it is so today that I can no longer know what my children and wife’s faces look like.
In 1997 I was diagnosed with melanoma cancer and to the question I made to the doctor of how long I have to live, he said that if they were not able to prevent it, I would have three to six months to live.
In 2004, 2005 and 2006, my house was broken into and in two of the instances both my wife and I were in the house.
In 2012 my wife was diagnosed with dementia and on the 27th of April this year, 2019, she departed from this life into eternal glory with Jesus.
This period in my life is the most devastating of all of what I have experienced in my life.
Of course there are people who have had to deal with bigger problems and trauma than me, but I just mention that I also know what problems and trauma are.
The advice that I give you and what I do is: In faith I quote the Word with great certainty – because it is the truth and it works for a child of our Lord who wants to truly live it in their lives. I know, because it has worked for me in the past and it still works for me today.
ROM 12:12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.
Because you see, I know:
ROM 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
So, what do I tell someone who is going through a terrible time as what I have been through and the difficult time I am still going through today?
I say everything from the Word that I have just shared with you as well as:
HEB 12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,
HEB 12:2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Yes, so that we can look back at the end of our lives and jubilant sing it out!
2 TIM 4:7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
In order to end up with Jesus and to experience, see and remember what I have always read in the Word:
1 COR 2:9 However, as it is written: What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”—the things God has prepared for those who love him—
Greetings,
Sakkie