As I was reading in 2 Corinthians 4 yesterday about having the Light of the World treasure in our earthen vessels, I came to the end of that chapter and to verses that seem to take on more of an importance in my life as each year passes.
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” [verses 16-18, NKJV]
Paul, a few verses earlier described his “light affliction” using words like “hard pressed,” “perplexed,” “persecuted,” and “delivered to death.”
Those words do not sound anything like “light affliction!”
The thing about those words that is extremely significant, however, is that they are “temporary.” They are what we see now, but they are not what we will see in eternity.
The eternal words found in those verses are “a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory!”
Whatever temporary light affliction we experience here remains here. Whether it is “hard pressed,” “perplexed,” “persecuted,” “delivered to death,” or cancer, ALS, old age, or anything else, they remain in the grave while we walk straight through into that “far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory!”
It is those yet unseen things that we live for now! Amen & Amen!