Saturday, August 30, 2008

Lay It To Heart and Consider Them

Isaiah 57:1-2 KJV
The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come.
He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness.


It is not impossible in our world today to see Christians who suffer for the case of Christ and to pity them. In some cases we have heard of Christians who have died early or tragically and we are tempted to believe that an injustice happened to them.
We see a Christian suffer financial loss
We see a Christian suffer abuses on the workplace
We see a Christian endure a terrible illness
We see a Christian killed in a battlefield or
We see a Christian killed in a car wreck


And our natural response is to think it is a sorrowful thing.

Not according to God's Word. It is very possible that God's taking of them early is a reward rather than a punishment.

The passage speaks of the lost world's reaction to the Christian suffering and the fact that they do not take it to heart. It means little to nothing to them.

God says what they should do is meditate on the testimony of their life, their sufferings and then their untimely death; and they should consider that God has removed them from the evil that shall come upon this world.

My wife and I lost the first two of our children before they were born. I have often thought of them and the fact that God graciously preserved them from the evils that are inherent in life on this planet. Anita and I look forward to the day we see them, not because of the tragedy of losing them, but because of the joy of seeing these who never faced a day of trouble as we and our sons have.

When we witness a believer who is suffering in some fashion; our hearts ought to reach out to be a blessing to them. And our minds ought to consider the reward that awaits them. Consider it, and draw close to God.

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