The glory of the riches of our inheritance (II) eye has not seen here and now

In Isaiah 64:4 we read "no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him.” Under the old covenant, reward and punishment is primarily in the here and now, so the application of this verse is very much rooted here “on earth.” Our relationship with the Creator’s unique, no earthly relationship even comes close. In particular the benefits of our salvation are amazing and include the fact that God has our back. And in spite of the fact that no eye has seen etc., etc. we ask under the New Covenant for a spirit of wisdom and revelation of these things (Ephesians 1:17,18). We were talking last night in fellowship about the rubber heart phenomenon, the tendency to disqualify ourselves in various ways. In particular to think God can’t love me, because I’m not holy, or that I somehow have to earn his approval.

When we do that, our ears have failed to perceive the glory of the good news that in Him we are qualified to be inheritors of the saints in light (Colossians 1:12). An inheritance is not something we earn, it's something we are given by virtue of the fact that we are someone’s son, or daughter. And the Christian has been given authority to be his sons and daughters (John 1:12). Concerning our earthly inheritance, there are bi-times those who would seek to rob us of our inheritance. So it is with our spiritual inheritance, there is a thief who would steal from us (John 10:10a). But the legal right is ours, he has no authority to do this. In fact the only authority he has, is that which we give him. And we deprive him of his agenda when we stand firm, believing what God has said.

The verse from Isaiah also talks about waiting. Waiting seems to be one of the hardest thing in life. It's particularly difficult in a culture where the tendency is to want what we want, and to want it now. There's a pill for every pain, the expectation of a solution to a problem. This tends to spill over into our spirituality, with our wanting instant spiritual maturity, maturity without the necessary process that brings us there. We want instant recognition of our gifts, we want people to treat us with dignity and respect and humility, not realizing that with our fellow man these things need to be earned through our consistently growing and maturing. And as with so many of the heroes in the Scripture, the necessary maturity only come with long periods of obedient waiting, in the fire of delayed answers. .

Father, thank You that we have an inheritance in the here and now, as well as in the world to come. We need to wait for both of course. But the thing about inheritance, is that someone or something has to die. And in order for us to receive our inheritance in the here and now we have to die to the old sin nature (Fromans 8:13). This is not about earning our inheritance, it's about our maturing to the place where You can trust us with our gifts. And we need Your grace Lord in our impatience, I need your grace in my impatience. So once again Lord I am asking for the grace to allow patience to have its perfect work, so that I may be perfect and complete lacking nothing (James 1:4) in Jesus Name Amen