Focus: Future With Less Tears
Text: 2Sam.2:26
"Knowest thou not that it will be bitterness in the latter end?"
Every one of us is heading to some future place where we are all going to live in, and it is essential that we do all in our power to make it a fit place - a place of little or no tears.
What are those things you do that seem pleasurable today, but in the end they turn regrettably ugly or unpleasant?
It is about time we said no today to the things we are most likely to regret tomorrow.
Isaiah talked about those who are "given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children" (Isa.47:8).
They are delusional to think that it doesn't matter how we lead our lives in this present-day world. The Scripture presents to us the case of Esau. We read, "For ye know how that AFTERWARD, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears" (Heb.12:17). Esau cried bitterly at last for his bastardly behavior in the past. In just a moment he sold his birthright and in another moment he lost the blessing that went with it.
Solomon says "there is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death" (Prov.14:12). Judas Iscariot is a case in point. We read, "Then Judas…repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver" (Mt.27:3). Peter says of him, "Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out" (Act.1:18). Judas got what he wanted but never wanted what he got. The evil of betrayal is regrettable. He took his own life in the end.
The sins of inaction and wrong action create a future full of bitterness and regrets. It-doesn't-matter attitude and lifestyle produces dozens-of-matters in the end.
If we are going to succeed in minimizing future tears and maximizing future joy, then we must make sure that we do not let certain things decide what we do, how we live or how we relate to others. We must not let our fears decide our actions. We must not let our greed or appetite determine our decisions and actions. We must not let our pride become our ruler or dictator. We must not let our anger tell us what to do. We must not let our hate control our emotions and actions. We must not let our biases and preferences blind us, even informing and influencing our beliefs and behavior.
Paul talked about those "whose God is their belly." They operate by the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. The Lord Jesus Christ, in one of His parables, talked about "the cares of this world," "the deceitfulness of riches," and "the pleasures of this life." The writer of Hebrews tells us that "the pleasures of sin" only last for a season. They are fleeting, not lasting.
We have it in Job that "if they obey and serve him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures" (Jb.36:11). We can sow good things into our future now. Our future is mainly as good as what we make of it today.
by Bishop Moses E. Peter