Not Of This World...

Waiting on the Weight

• Pete Garcia

“But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” – 2 Corinthians 4:3-6

The end of the age is upon us whether we like it or not. 

The mystery of lawlessness is in full bloom and its vast fields of wickedness are ripe for harvest. Up is down and down is up. Evil is called good, and good, evil. The thin veil of Judeo-Christian culture, which has provided stability for Western Civilization for the past five centuries, is rapidly disintegrating. The Gospel-saturated societies are now hardening their collective hearts against Jesus Christ. 

In that vacuum, they are turning to cults, the occult, paganism, mysticism, and universalism as solutions that promise salvation that avoids offending their debased worldviews.

Simultaneously, western mainstream denominations are shrinking back, unable and unwilling to maintain their mantel of salt and light in a darkening world. Many so-called churches are now finding this time opportune to throw off the façade of Christianity and embrace a blasphemous ecumenical religious system that prioritizes the social justice gospel over the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

The world outside the church is determinedly institutionalizing blasphemy in every facet of academia, media, business, politics, and entertainment. We remnant are increasingly finding ourselves vexed, marginalized, and persecuted for not bending the knee to this antichrist spirit sweeping the world.

“We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed — always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death is working in us, but life in you.” – 2 Corinthians 4:8-11

But there is light at the end of our tunnel. 

While we are in this world, we are not of this world. 

We are not defined by our race, nationality, gender, economic status, or even this physical universe. We are new creations in Christ, created for the ages to come, where we will spend eternity endlessly plumbing the depths of God’s riches, grace, splendor, and mercy, and never finding its end. No, our story does not depend on the rise or fall of nations.

Our story neither depends on nor is defined by political parties, spending bills, elections, or government edicts. 

A wholly sovereign and eternally omnipotent God has chosen you and I to live in these volatile and troublesome days as a witness to a lost and dying world. Although our story begins here at the end of the age, we have only just begun to live. Neither life nor death, nor even our own failings and inadequacies, can diminish or define what Christ has begun in us while we wait for that eternal glory we are destined to inherit.

“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.” – 2 Corinthians 4:16-18