Nice one Scott - that’s a really helpful insight! Keep ‘em coming, I say.

We are not to be fatalistic, yet in suffering we are to be very ‘flash forward’ people.  The difference between us and our secularist world is that we know what we are to do tomorrow and are responsible for deciding to do good. We know are constantly to make decisions to do the good that God has planned. We know our inheritance.

We are to trust him knowing there will suffering. God does not want us to live in denial of tomorrow’s difficulties and our death.

We know we will suffer and that life will be difficult. But we also know that God follows us for good. The cross leads us to be overwhelmed by the goodness of God. Jesus had advanced knowledge of his suffering and he endured it.

We’re not to be ignorant of the inevitability of today’s or tomorrow’s suffering but we are to endure in Christ.

We even have been given a look into heaven and that is to influence our daily thinking and living.

”’...Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.’
(Revelation 2)

Di

Thanks for this Scott. I’ve been enjoying Flash Forward as well and was struck by how excellent a sermon illustration it made. In a way the whole premise raises very starkly the question which lies behind much of the Bible- how should one live now, in light of what we know about the future? Given that we have been given a reliable insight into the fact that a judgment is coming, and also a new heaven and earth where when we look back the trials of this life will seem like a this “light momentary affliction” in comparison to “an eternal weight of glory”... the answer seems pretty clear!