Hasting Unto What?
In 2 Peter 3:12 we are told that we are to be looking forward to the Day of God with eager anticipation as if our eagerness might somehow hasten its coming. But what is it about the Day of God that we are to long for so intently in this passage? It is the complete dissolution by fire of the visible heavens and earth: our physical realm in which we live with all its works (verse 10). I wonder how many of us long for the destruction of our own personal physical realm that we have worked so hard to acquire and maintain.
Oh to be sure, we are ready enough to be released from the burdensome troubles associated wit h this fallen world, but what about our treasured comforts and possessions: our lands, homes, cars, furnishings, and all the other earthly things with which we are so enamored now? If the treasure of our hearts is not wholly in things eternal, it can only compromise that sweet anticipation that we should have for the coming Day of God.
Will we be like Lot and his wife: hesitant to the last to lose all the things of this world they had treasured so highly, at the expense of the true blessings that God would have given them? How much better to be like Abraham who “looked for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God!” (Heb. 11:10) Is not friendship with the world enmity with God? (James 4:4) This “friend of God,”Abraham, would not take so much as “a thread to a shoe latchet” from the world, but “lifted up his hand unto Jehovah, the Most High God, the possessor of heaven and earth.”(Gen. 14:22-23)
With irony we note what Lot sought so earnestly was totally lost to him along with the last shred of his dignity. On the other hand, the material blessing that God bestowed upon Abraham was not a master to him but rather a servant, that he might use it for the glory of God in His work.
Love Behind Chastening
In Exodus 5 we note that the first ones allowed by God to suffer in Egypt were His own people, the children of Israel. To many today this is a great stumbling block to their faith. "How could God allow this to happen?", they often reason. But think about it, the Lord says in I Peter 4:17, "the time is come that judgment must begin at the house (or household) of God." Would it be a loving thing for God to permit His own to become enamored with and comfortable in a corrupt, fallen world, where even creation itself groans awaiting redemption? (Rom. 8:19-23)
It must ever be brought before us that this is not our home; we are but pilgrims and strangers here. Otherwise, we would not look for a better. The best thing for the Israelites in Egypt was for them to want to leave it. This would never have happened if God had given them ease and comfort there. Beloved, "despise not thou the chastening of the Lord,...for whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth." (Heb. 12:5,6)