What if life gets worse? What if the unimaginable happens to you?

I naively thought following Jesus would insulate my family from the threats of the world … I was wrong. We have a promise, and that promise is eternal life – not easy life, not perfect life, not happy little bubble life. Jesus promises eternal life for those who place their faith and trust in him. Everything before eternity is tainted with human messes and attacks from the enemy.

We just don’t talk about that do we? To sell Christianity, we present a life of overflowing joy … which we do get to experience sometimes. But if that’s all I sell you, then when life hits you’re going to want your money back. Cancel my commitment to Jesus … life got hard anyway.

Life is going to eventually touch each of us. We will hurt. We will lose. We will grieve. But with Jesus, we have a promise that outlasts all of that. And that promise gives us something here and now that makes us wildly rich and ridiculously blessed.

Jesus tells John to write a letter to the church of Smyrna. Smyrna was a rich city with leaders who demanded to be worshiped. If you didn’t worship their leaders, then you were forced to suffer in extreme poverty. The Christians there were under the harshest of conditions with literally nothing. All they had to do was call their leaders Lord and pretend to worship them, but they refused. In faith, they would only offer Jesus their praise. Only Jesus would be called Lord. So, they suffered.

And guess what … Jesus knew they were suffering. This is after Jesus’ crucifixion, so Jesus is now sitting in complete power on the throne of heaven, seeing all of this. Seeing his people being punished for following him. He has the power to stop it. He has the power to change it. But instead, he sends this letter.

Revelation 2: 8-11, “This is the message from the one who is the First and the Last, who was dead but is now alive: I know about your suffering and your poverty – but you are rich! I know the blasphemy of those opposing you. They say they are Jews, but they are not, because their synagogue belongs to Satan. Don’t be afraid of what you are about to suffer. The devil will throw some of you into prison to test you. You will suffer for 10 days. But if you remain faithful even when facing death, I will give you the crown of life. Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches. Whoever is victorious will not be harmed by the second death.”

So essentially Jesus is telling this group of suffering faithful people, “Yip, I see this and it’s going to get even worse for a period of time.”

They had done nothing wrong. They weren’t being punished. They had absolutely nothing physically, but they had everything spiritually.

If you were to take an inventory in your own life, what do you have physically? Now, what do you have spiritually? Which is most important to you?

Jesus is looking at the uber wealthy of Smyrna, the ones in palaces with the most comfortable and easy lives and comparing them to his followers who have been stripped of everything and live in complete poverty. He calls one of them rich. Who was that? It wasn’t those with physical things … it was those with spiritual things. This is true wealth.

If I’m being honest, that all scares me a little bit. Would I praise God if it meant absolutely everything I have was taken? If I were suffering because of Jesus, would I still serve him? Now what if my family were added to the suffering? Would I remain faithful if it meant my family was threatened with that same pain?

These are the people Jesus is sending this letter to. People with that kind of faith. People with that level of commitment. And to them he says, “You are rich!” They are rich because of what they have spiritually. What they have is what really matters. They have a relationship with the one true God. They have an eternal promise beyond the very fleeting things of this life.

It’s so easy to get caught up in this temporary life that we forget how quickly this will all be over. I’m a few months away from turning 50 and I honestly don’t know how that has happened. How am I this old and how has my life gone this fast? How are the sands in my hourglass less on top than they are on the bottom? While I’ve been busy building and collecting things, eternity is getting closer and closer. And the moment eternity begins, not a single thing I ever bought matters. My house won’t matter, my weight won’t matter, my bank account won’t matter. Only the spiritual things will matter. And if I’m living this life poor spiritually, my eternity is in jeopardy.

Jesus says, “Don’t be afraid of what you are about to suffer. The devil will throw some of you into prison to test you. You will suffer for ten days. But if you remain faithful even when facing death, I will give you the crown of life.”

Jesus is very clear:

• I see all of this.

I can’t promise you that life won’t come in and touch you, but God promises it will be measured and limited. And he promises if you will remain faithful through the hardships of this life, he will give you the crown of life.

Here’s what that doesn’t mean:

• It doesn’t mean you won’t ever get sick.

We’ve twisted God’s promises and there’s a whole lot of brokenhearted followers of Jesus falling out of love with their Savior because they are so utterly disappointed in this life. But, my friend, it’s not about this life … it’s about the CROWN OF LIFE.

The crown of life is the victory on the other side of this. The eternal perfection with God that awaits us. This is our promise and it is absolutely untouchable by the enemy. He can’t steal it from us.

Now, go back to the beginning of the letter and notice how Jesus introduces himself. He says he is the one who was dead but is now alive. He is victorious over death. he faced death, but now he is alive. He’s not promising us long life or easy life, he’s promising us eternal, perfect life … that’s FAR BETTER. He says, you’re going to suffer and die, and so did I. You can also join me in life after this.

That’s your invitation.

It’s not an invitation to an insulated, always happy life here in a Jesus bubble. It’s an invitation to a protection from the second death. The spiritual death that would separate us forever from him. We don’t have to experience that death when we accept eternal life through Jesus.

May you be so spiritually rich that physical things have less of a hold on you. May you hold this life loosely while you live intentionally focused on the eternal life being promised. May you remain faithful knowing through it all there’s a crown of life awaiting you.

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