Be Forever, With The LORD!
“…. and so shall we forever be with The LORD,” 1 Thessalonians 4:17.
This morning I woke to a dream I had about a dear friend who had passed on to be with The LORD a few years ago …
I saw him glowing with joy and peace, doing and having the very things he could never experience on earth.
Things he had suffered as a result of being obedient to heaven’s call. I saw him playing with a little girl and loving and embracing her, and enjoying her so much.
Things his heart ached to experience with his own daughters on earth, who turned against him and rejected him.
I woke with the words: ” …so shall we be forever with The LORD” resounding in my spirit and realized anew that we have been given an eternal opportunity in a temporal world.
How we choose to spend it, and on what, determines our eternal future.
What mattered most, and whether we lived unto ourselves, or for the Kingdom (whether in ministry, business or in a career) and what we chose to invest our lives in, whether accumulating things in this temporary world for our own pleasure, or using our skills to build God’s eternal Kingdom, will all matter one day, when we stand before Him in the Light of Eternity.
Let us think about this reality today in whatever we strive to accomplish on earth, and arm ourselves anew with the thought of both living here and giving ourselves daily to be with The LORD in whatever we may be doing, both now and forevermore, and let us choose to willingly do so, irrespective of the short-lived sacrifices we may pay on this earth.
In conclusion – let us do what we do, in order for others to also be empowered to, “forever be with The LORD.”
“Nothing will seem too much to have done or suffered, when in the end, we see Him…” Amy Carmichael.
“One life to live, t’will soon be past, only what’s done in Christ will last…” C.T. Studd.
~ Johann van der Hoven
Johann van der Hoven is in South Africa. He has been serving The LORD in ministry since 1991 and has hosted numerous apostolic revival meetings in South Africa and in South America. He also currently pioneers a organic church planting movement across South Africa. For more information about him and his ministry visit www.sonsofsovereignty.com or Revival.
Wow.