Utumishi Blog

Sammy spoke to us about eternity from the book of Job at our last MTC.

Then early yesterday morning one of the pastors from our church passed on suddenly.

Here are some quotes and words from an eternal perspective…

I know that my redeemer lives,
and that in the end he will stand on the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God;
I myself will see him
with my own eyes—I, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me! (Job 19:25-27)

…but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them.  And for us this is the end of all the stories… But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning  Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before. (C. S. Lewis, The Last Battle)

When this passing world is done,
When has sunk yon glaring sun,
When we stand with Christ in glory,
Looking o’er life’s finished story,
Then, Lord, shall I fully know—
Not till then—how much I owe.

When I stand before the throne,
Dressed in beauty not my own,
When I see Thee as Thou art,
Love Thee with unsinning heart,
Then Lord, shall I fully know—
Not till then—how much I owe.

(Ro­bert M. Mc­Cheyne, died at the age of 29)

Show me, Lord, my life’s end
and the number of my days;
let me know how fleeting my life is.
You have made my days a mere handbreadth;
the span of my years is as nothing before you.
Everyone is but a breath,
even those who seem secure.
Surely everyone goes around like a mere phantom;
in vain they rush about, heaping up wealth
without knowing whose it will finally be.
But now, Lord, what do I look for?
My hope is in you. (Psalm 39:4-7)

…teach us who survive, in this and other like daily spectacles of mortality, to see how frail and uncertain our own condition is; and so to number our days, that we may seriously apply our hearts to that holy and heavenly wisdom, whilst we live here, which may in the end bring us to life everlasting, through the merits of Jesus Christ thine only Son our Lord. (From The Order for the Visitation of the Sick from the 1662 BCP – the whole order is so radically different to most modern Christianity it’s worth reading in full)

I preach as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men. (Richard Baxter)

I stand vigilantly on the precipice of eternity speaking to people who this week could go over the edge whether they are ready to or not. I will be called to account for what I say there. (John Piper)

Then I heard a voice from heaven say, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” (Revelation 14:13)

So truly our way to eternal joy is to suffer here with Christ; and our door to enter into eternal life is gladly to die with Christ; that we may rise again from death, and dwell with him in everlasting life. (Order for the Visitation of the Sick)

…labour always to learn to die. Defy the world, deny the devil, and despite the flesh, and delight yourself only in the Lord… desire, with St Paul, to be dissolved and to be with Christ, with whom even in death there is life. (From the letter of Lady Jane Grey, 9-day Queen of England, to her sister Katherine, written in the back of her Greek New Testament the night before her execution)

For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. (Philippians 1:21)