A Reflection on Riches
by LewisBy now most of you know that I’m a fan of C. S. Lewis and his writings. He was an excellent thinker, an excellent writer, and an excellent story teller. The Chronicles of Narnia bears witness to all that.
But even many fans of “Jack” (as his friends called him) have not read his work widely, and one of the books that often gets missed is The Weight of Glory. That title phrase comes from 2 Corinthians 4.17, which we read yesterday with its surrounding verses. In that passage Paul calls his hardships, which were many and often life threatening, “momentary light affliction” compared to the “eternal weight of glory.”
Do you see all three parallel descriptions in those phrases? One is affliction, the other is glory; affliction is momentary, glory is eternal; affliction is light, glory is a weight. Beyond that we also learn here that affliction is relative while glory is beyond all comparison. (See Romans 8.18.) But perhaps the most marvelous fact is that the first (momentary light affliction), results in the second (eternal weight of glory)!
How do we gain riches in heaven? By giving ourselves to God. That will cause in our lives on this earth, as it did in Paul’s life, momentary light affliction. But rest assured that in God’s hands even that affliction is working for our benefit, and producing for us an eternal weight of glory. How incredible! And how rich we are.
Every blessing,
Lewis