Reading and praying alongside the church at Smyrna in Revelation chapter two, I notice the exhortation begins with Jesus’ testimony of dying and coming again to life.
His core teaching and exhortation here is for the Smyrnan’s to ‘remain faithful up to the point of death itself’.
One can’t actually be, much less remain, faithFUL unless he was full of faith to start with. Faithfulness is costly. It may pay out in tedious and repetitious mundane service or the bill due. Under extreme circumstances it may suck faith out of your heart like a motorhome speeding up a mountain slope going through fuel. Either way, and at all points in-between, the test of faithfulness requires the faith reserves to continually be topped up.
In this extreme test, notice with me, Jesus promises them the same reward he announced in his opening statement. His own reward. There is life, new and different; resurrection life- after the test.
When we endure hard things unto a death, whether we caused the test or not, in faithFULness to Christ, the price tag on those reserves required to take us to the top is a faith in the resurrection itself. Here, he promised the Smyrnan’s that the ‘second death’ mentioned in chapter twenty would not hurt them. I put this to you that even in this life there are a lot of ‘second deaths’. A test once passed, is never to be repeated -at least as long as the TESTimony is adhered to.
It strengthens me to know that my faithful suffering for His witness here and now has a reward. It has ability and promise to prevent future testings and judgments, even into the heavenly realms.
When life crowds in and you don’t think you can climb another step, remember there’s a change coming. The test means something more than you can see in front of or behind you. There is a reward. Momentum will change. Soon you will find yourself on the reverse slope, new in vitality and vision with a whole new world in front of you, and the best thing is knowing you’ve moved greatly forward on this great God journey we call life.
There is a resurrection. I hope and believe it’s very flavour and aroma creeps into every room of your life and lingers there forever.