When you sigh for heaven, remember:

“…Christ…loved the Church, and gave Himself for it…That He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish” (Eph.5:25,26).

Too readily we forget that Christ loves us infinitely more than we love Him; that He paid the penalty for our sins on cruel Calvary and shed His life’s blood that one day He might have us for Himself to share His glory with Him forever.

Surely, then, He would rather have us at His side in heaven than here in this scene of sin and sorrow, and sickness and death. We should bear this in mind when we long that we might leave this world and go to be with Him.

But there is more: The Saviour, who was exiled from this earth, and is, even now, rejected by men, has not yet rejected them. Rather, He has left us here as His ambassadors on hostile territory, to plead with his enemies, praying them “in His stead” to be reconciled to God, assuring them that He has done all that is necessary to effect a reconciliation (IICor.5: 20,21).

And this is His attitude toward mankind now, though the prophetic Scriptures declare so emphatically that man’s rejection of Christ was to be — and will be — visited with the severest judgment (Psa.2:4-9; Acts 2:16-20).

But not yet! Though man had declared war on Christ (Acts 4:26,27), He did not yet make a counter-declaration, but interrupted the prophetic program to save Saul of Tarsus, the leader of the rebellion and sent him forth to usher in the present “dispensation of the grace of God” (Eph.3:1-3).

This is why, in His love and compassion, He leaves us here still to plead with His enemies: “Be ye reconciled to God”. And what about His special love for us? Entirely apart from rewards earned by service or suffering for Him, God will richly reward us (II Cor.4:17) just for being here as “ambassadors for Christ”.

To the Reader:

Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:

"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."

To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.

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