We are not here for our own pleasure, nor is our life counted as of little value. Instead we are to be looking to the coming of the LORD.
For we will be held accountable. And this is frightening, because we waste, we do evil, we hurt each other.
And life is fragile. You can be well one day and dead the next. We do not know the time we have left. I pray that is is long as today is son twos 14th birthday, and I would want to see his children grown before I pass away… but that is not for me to say.
Here Peter tells us how we should act.
11Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, 12waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire? 13But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.
14Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; 15and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation. So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures. 17You therefore, beloved, since you are forewarned, beware that you are not carried away with the error of the lawless and lose your own stability. 18But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.
Which brings me to an aside. Sometimes this place gets controversial. Sometimes I get snarky, and the sarcasm is not that good, nor is it holy, nor is it righteous. Like many divorced solo Dads, I have to spend more time and money than I would like dealing with the courts.
We communicate in part. And some people will not read the text as a whole, and be offended in part. Their offendedness is their error — as people twisted Paul’s words, they will twist ours.
In fact, at times Jesus was quite clear, quite confrontational, and quite damning.
42Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes’? 43Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. 44The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”
45When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them.
The fruits of the kingdom? We are clearly supposed to produce these as the result of our lives. We are not saved by an accumulation of good, nor are their angels on our shoulders recording the good and bad deeds that we do. MzDarwin gave us Christians a really good correction on this, and demonstrates what the fruits are when she commented:
The customary Jewish response to the question of “How could a loving God allow children to get cancer?” is to slap the asker upside the head and yell, “What’s the matter with you, whining about theology when children are getting cancer? Go to medical school already! Or at least cook them some chicken in a pot. What kind of person stands around kvetching at God when children are suffering?”
The results of our lives will be seen not in us, but in those around us. I cannot tell if I am more holy or less. I have enough problems dealing with my own sinful desires. It is those around me who will show — in their walk — our influence.