When it is said that “Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it” (Eph. 5:2525Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; (Ephesians 5:25)), He saw her in the past eternity in all her glory and beauty. This ought to encourage us, even in this day of real weakness. It’s something like Paul told Timothy in the first chapter of 2 Timothy. He brings in the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus. It is as though the Apostle were saying, “God is going to carry out fully what He purposed in a past eternity; He’s going to carry it all out. Now, Timothy, all I’m telling you to do is to go on in the truth and God is going to take care of things.”
You know believers sometimes get so excited and nervous over the conditions of things that we actually forget what we’re here for. We’re here to respond to the Lord’s affections. We’re here to yield some meat for Him, as the woman in John 4: “Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?” Sometimes we are so busy trying to keep the ship right side up that we forget that really we’re here to give the Lord some satisfaction out of our hearts.