Toongabbie Anglican Church Blog

Weekly Blurb

No pain, no glory

Sunday 15 June, 2003 · Posted by Philip Bassett

As I�ve been driving around this last week or so, I�ve been listening to the CD�s of Peter Adam�s 2003 CMS Summer School bible studies on Elijah.

In his final study, Peter examines the Biblical call to take the gospel into our world and finds that we, like Christ, are being called to great suffering resulting in great glory. As we proclaim the gospel, he says, it�s going to cost us: perhaps our time, perhaps our effort, perhaps our giving, perhaps our going, and perhaps even our lives. As we are concerned to see the world won for Christ, we are not going to see it without a struggle.

He talks about Elijah, who in the end was unsuccessful in bringing the northern kingdom of Israel back into covenant relationship with God, but in the end was vindicated by God and was taken up to heaven in the whirlwind.

We may well struggle for the Gospel all our lives without much apparent result but God will vindicate our work on the last day. Then we will have the joy and the glory of seeing the result of our labours. We�ll be amazed at the things that God has accomplished in the areas we�ve been praying for; we�ll see the people we�ve been praying for; we�ll rejoice with the people won to Christ through the missionaries we�ve been supporting; we�ll see the treasures we�ve stored up in heaven.

But, says Peter, we Anglicans tend towards that middle of the road view, moderation in everything. Not much pain, so not much glory. Our prayers are often pro forma rather than passionate, our given sporadic rather than sacrificial. We�ll be in heaven Ok, that�s guaranteed through faith in Christ, but at the celebration afterwards we are in danger of being mere spectators rather than participants.

If you�d like to borrow the CD�s, I�ll be happy to lend them to you.

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