Thursday, August 18, 2016

"There is a radical difference between desiring to be delivered from a world of disappointment and sorrow and a longing to be delivered from this body of death in order that we may be present with the Lord. The latter was the case with the Apostle when he said, “having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better” (Phi 1:23). A desire to be freed from abject poverty or a bed of languishing is only natural, but a yearning to be delivered from a world of iniquity and a body of death so that we may enjoy unclouded communion with the Beloved is truly spiritual. One of the greatest surprises of our own Christian life has been to find how very few people give evidence of the latter. The majority of professors appear to be so wedded to this scene, so in love with this life, or so fearful of the physical aspect of death, that they cling to life as tenaciously as do non-professors. Surely heaven cannot be very real to them. True, we ought to submissively wait God’s time, yet that should not preclude or override a desire to “depart, and be with Christ.”
~ Arthur Pink, "The Life of Elijah"

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