The Christian Has a Right to Grin!

The Christian Has a Right to Grin!
In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. (1 Peter 1:6)
I HAVE ALWAYS FELT COMPASSION for Christian men and women who seem to major in pessimism, looking on the dark and gloomy side and never able to do anything with life's problems but grumble about them!
I meet them often, and when I do I wonder: "Can these people be reading the same Bible that I have been reading?"
Peter wrote to the tempted, suffering and persecuted believers in his day and noted with thanksgiving that they could rejoice because they counted God's promises and provision greater then their trials. They looked for a future state of things which would be much better than any current situation on this earth.
Now, I know that in any church setting it is possible to find Christians who are intent upon a wrong emphasis in either of two directions.
First, there are always those who are taken up entirely with the emphasis of the sweet bye and bye. They are contented with getting by on a spiritual appeal of "Come now - and wait for the feast!"
In spiritual matters, they are much like the little boy whose mother says, "Johnnie, here is a piece of bread and butter. We will not be eating for another hour, you know."
Johnnie probably has a ravenous appetite, but in this instance he is forced to piece out his hunger until the dinner is finally ready.
Some Christians seem satisfied to go along without even a slice - but on a bare crumb! They are putting all of their emphasis on the feast to come in the sweet bye and bye.
But, on the other hand, there are those who make the mistake of putting all of the emphasis upon the "sweet now and now," therefore thinking very little about the world to come.
I am sure this brings the question: "What, then, is the proper emphasis?"
The right thing to do is to put the emphasis where God put it - and I think that is the emphasis that there are some things you can have now and some things you cannot have now!
I insist that the Lord expects His people to be thorough and sincere students of the Bible so that we will not be guilty of surrendering anything that is promised for us now or demanding anything presently that is promised as a later benefit. There would be a lot less tension among believers and much less nervous pressure and misunderstanding if we would study our Bible with that thought in mind!
Actually, there is no promise of any such thing as absolute perfection now. Perfection is a relative thing now and God has not really completed a thing with us, as yet.
Absolute perfection is for the time when the sons of God shall be revealed and completeness awaits the time when we shall look upon the Son and become grown-up sons, indeed. Peter said that the persecuted and suffering Christians of his day looked for a state of things immeasurably better than that which they knew, and that state of things would be perfect and complete!
What great changes
Oh, what great changes there will be when we come to that time of perfect completeness and complete perfection!
The very earth itself and all of nature surrounding us will reveal the blessings of God's perfection in that coming time.
The Apostle Paul, speaking as the man of God, tries to tell us how the realm of nature will be changed, in the Epistle to the Romans:
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (8:18–23).
Paul is trying to make it plain to us that mankind is so related to the earth that when the Lord comes in triumph to glorify mankind, He will also glorify the earth and nature. He insists that the earth and nature will share in the glorification with the sons of God who were once sons of Adam but are now children of the King.
This old earth, as we know it, did go down in a collapse with the sons of Adam when we all went down together. Floods and typhoons and earthquakes, tornadoes and tidal waves are all the result of the distorted state of fallen nature. Sickness and insanity and all of our weaknesses and frailties in the flesh can be traced to this fallen state of affairs for we are still very much a part of the earth and of nature.
Man and his home - this earth - are very much alike and so God will redeem the earth by redeeming people. In the hour that He comes to glorify redeemed mankind, He will also allow that glorification to overflow and spread throughout the earth!
That means, also, that great changes in human society will be wrought in that day of completeness and perfection.
We could read for hours in the Old Testament, noting the quotations which look forward to that day in which the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord, illustrated by the manner in which we know the waters cover the sea.
A different kind of society
There will be a kind of human society which we have not yet known. There will no longer be great problems between management and labor and between landlords and tenants because "No man will build and another inhabit."
There will be no need for rent ceilings and price controls. There will be no need for people to live in rat-infested tenements because everything will belong to God and everyone will possess his own land and live in his own house.
There will be no problem concerning labor and toil because one will not plant and another reap but every man will reap what he plants! God will take care of that for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord.
The believing children of God should have an optimistic outlook about God's future plans for this earth and human society, based upon the realities expressed in the prophetic Scriptures. We cannot accept man's own horrible predictions of destruction, which range from this earth falling into the sun to destruction by a runaway comet sweeping the earth to a dreadful fate.
As Christians and students of the Word of God, we believe that this earth is yet to be the home of a redeemed people and a changed society that will recognize His lordship.
Also, for Christian believers, it is a more personal note to learn from the Bible that the great day of perfection and rejoicing will bring great changes, affecting our bodies, our minds and souls.
The Apostle John clearly spoke to Christian believers when he wrote:
Dear friends, now we are the children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:2)
Then the Apostle Paul, in spite of the imperfection of language, gave the Corinthian Christians the divinely inspired description of great changes to be wrought in bodies of the believing children of God in that great day of revelation and transformation:
But someone may ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?" (1 Corinthians 15:35)
At this point, Paul was not quite as patient with questions as he might have been. He answered:
How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. All flesh is not the same: Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.
So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven. (36–49)
These are among the reasons that believing Christians, whether in the apostolic time or in our own, may be expected to have an optimistic and cheerful outlook, waiting for salvation which shall be revealed in the last time and engaged in great rejoicing as they wait!
This note of rejoicing is very clear throughout the entire Bible and in the New Testament it rings forth like a silver bell.
Never a life of gloom
The life of the normal, believing child of God can never become a life of gloom and pessimism. In every age we will have some people whose concept of Christianity is a kind of gloomy resignation to the inevitable. But it is the Holy Spirit who has promised the ability for the Christian to rejoice in God's promises day by day.
Of course, the Christian believer is serious minded and he can weep with those who weep. But he is alert and optimistic and has a cheerful hope because he is looking for that changed state of affairs which is so far beyond anything that this world has to offer.
Peter states it as a paradox: the obedient Christian greatly rejoices even in the midst of great heaviness, trials and suffering. God's people know that things here are not all they ought to be, but they are not spending any time in worrying about it. They are too busy rejoicing in the gracious prospect of all that will take place when God fulfills all of His promises to His redeemed children!
This leads us directly into a summary of the glorious contradictions which make the life of the Christian such a puzzle to the worldling. We must admit that the true Christian is a rather strange person in the eye of the unbeliever.
I use the adjective true in regard to the Christian not only to point out the necessity for the new birth but to indicate, also, the Christian who is living according to his new birth. I speak here of a transformed life pleasing to God, for if you want to be a Christian, you must agree to a very much different life. The life of obedience to Jesus Christ means living moment by moment in the Spirit of God and it will be so different from your former life that you will often be considered strange. In fact, the life in the Spirit is such a different life that some of your former associates will probably discuss the question of whether or not you are mentally disturbed. The true Christian may seem a strange person indeed to those who make their observations only from the point of view of this present world, which is alienated from God and His gracious plan of salvation.
Consider now these glorious contradictions and you will no longer wonder why the true believer in Jesus Christ is such an amazement to this world.
The Christian is dead and yet he lives forever. He died to himself and yet he lives in Christ.
The reason he lives is because of the death of another.
Save your life by losing it
The Christian saves his own life by losing it and he is in danger of losing it by trying to save it.
It is an interesting thing that when he wants to get up, the Christian always starts down, for God's way up is always down, even though that is contrary to common sense. It is also contrary to the finest wisdom on the earth, because the foolish things of God are wiser than anything on this earth.
He always surrenders
You may also note about the true Christian that when he wants to sin, he always surrenders. Instead of standing and slugging it out, he surrenders to a third party and wins without firing a shot or receiving a bruise. He surrenders to God and so wins over everyone else!
Another strange thing about him is that he is strongest when he is weakest and weakest when he is strongest. It is God's principle in his life that his strength lies in his weakness for when he gets up thinking that he is strong he is always weak. However, when he gets down on his knees thinking he is weak, he is always strong!
Again, he may be poor - and if he is a real Christian, he usually is - and yet he will always make others rich. Paul was a poor man in prison, but he immeasurably enriched the entire Christian world. John Bunyan was a poor man in Bedford jail, but he gave us Pilgrim's Progress.
You can go on down the scale throughout history and you will find that a rich Christian was generally poor and the poor Christian made everyone rich.
This man who is a true Christian is at his highest when he feels the lowest and he is lowest when he feels the highest. He is in the least danger when he is fearful and trusting God, and in most danger when he feels the most self-confident.
He is most sinless when he feels the most sinful and he is the most sinful when he feels the most sinless.
Yes, he is a strange fellow, this Christian! He has the most when he is giving away the most and he has less when he is keeping most. That is contrary to the common sense of this world and that is why we are considered a peculiar group of people - but they don't know us!
When they try to figure it out, they cannot get the true picture.
A man will say, "Well, I am willing to believe and to go to church at Christmas and on Mother's Day, but I cannot understand this strange fanatic who seems to have the most when he is giving the most!"
He has never discerned God's principle of blessing the nine-tenths which the Christian has for himself so that it is actually more than the ten-tenths without any provision for God or His causes.
Here's a strange thing about the Christian believer. He sometimes is doing the most when he is not doing anything at all. Sometimes to get the most done, God calls him to the side and says, "Sit down there." Sometimes he goes the fastest when he is standing still for in faith he may hear the whisper: "Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord!"
Saved now and later
One of the important principles in the Christian's daily life is this: he is saved now and is ready to declare it with shining face and yet he expects to be saved later! He is continually looking for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
We must look at this for someone is sure to say, "Make up your mind! Is he saved now or is he anticipating salvation?"
Of course he is saved now; but he is also looking to be saved. He has life now, but he is also looking for the perfection to be revealed in the future plan of God. Now, you will not be able to explain that to your neighbor; he will just underscore the fact that it is part of your strange religious fanaticism. He does not understand that you are a true Christian!
Neither will the world ever understand our insistence that the Christian born on this earth is actually a citizen of another country which he has not yet visited. He is born on earth and yet he knows by faith that he is a citizen of heaven.
The Bible tells us plainly that while we are walking on this earth we are seated in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus our Lord - and that doesn't refer to the midweek prayer service! It means that by faith and spiritual position in Christ we are seated in the heavenly places.
The believer knows that in himself he is nothing, but even while he is humbly telling the Lord that he is nothing, he knows very well that he is the apple of God's eye!
Some of our critics say: "You Christians talk about yourself and your relation to God as if you were God's very best."
I have a good answer to that, too! The very Christian who believes that he is the apple of God's eye is the same unselfish Christian who is giving sacrificially of his money, sending his sons and daughters or going himself to preach the gospel to the least and the last of the peoples of the earth!
Finally, the good Christian is in love with one he has never seen, and although he fears and reveres God, he is not afraid of God at all!
Many of the philosophers and poets phrased it all wrong when they tried to advise everyone on earth not to be afraid of God for He is a good fellow and all will be well!
The true Christian fears God with a trembling reverence and yet he is not afraid of God at all. He draws nigh to God with full assurance of faith and victory and yet at the same time is trembling with holy awe and fear.
To fear and yet draw near - this is the attitude of faith and love and yet the holy contradiction classifies him as a fanatic, too!
Today, as in all the centuries, true Christians are an enigma to the world, a thorn in the flesh of Adam, a puzzle to angels, the delight of God and a habitation of the Holy Spirit.
Our fellowship ought to take in all of the true children of God, regardless of who and where and what, if they are washed in the blood, born of the Spirit, walking with God the Father, begotten unto a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ and rejoicing in the salvation to be revealed!