Are You One to be Pitied?
1 Corinthians 15:19 (AMP) says, “If we who are [abiding] in Christ have hoped only in this life [and this is all there is], then we are of all people most miserable and to be pitied.”
The Apostle Paul was encouraging the people of Corinth, who must have forgotten how much our hope transcends beyond this life. By this life, he was referring to the life that they were living here on earth. Apostle Paul was making a statement that showed how foolish it was to have been living in Christ, that means abiding, trusting, in relationship with Him, and believe that this life on earth and the things that happen in it is all that we’ll get.
Philippians 3:14 AMPC says, “I press on toward the goal to win the [supreme and heavenly] prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward.”
See Apostle Paul knew first hand that everything he went through on this earth was necessary and required of him to get to the heavenly prize of eternal life. His purpose is what allowed him to push through. Those who only regard the things in this life with nothing to hope for beyond truly are the most miserable, even more miserable than unbelievers you know, because you become just like them when all you can do is fathom the things in this life.
1 Corinthians 2:14 (NKJV) says, “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
If your mind is only set on the things in the natural, you will miss the powerful hope God has to offer including eternal life. You become a fool without hope not realizing the life we live in this body we are to live in Christ by faith and hope that keeps us from being pitied or miserable. We have an end goal!!
Let me show how the Apostle Paul exemplifies this, I wonder if the church of Corinth even noticed.
1 Corinthians 15:8 says “and last of all, as to one untimely (prematurely, traumatically) born, He appeared to me also.”
That word untimely born in Greek only occurs one time in scripture. It means a miscarriage (abortion), i.e. (by analogy) untimely birth -- born out of due time. It analogizes a fetus expelled prematurely, a life that never reaches maturity and is therefore viewed as incomplete, fragile and dishonored.
Aborted and miscarried babies cannot get their life back, yet and still Paul likens himself pre-the road to Damascus (His literal come to Jesus moment) to an aborted baby or a baby born before its time. Why does he do this, you might ask? To show that there is still hope beyond the things of this life. By every natural measure, Saul would have been ended but through the resurrecting power of hope that Christ brought, he was raised to a new life in Paul to share the gospel!
I believe that we are in a season in which the Lord is calling us to believe and hope for things beyond what we can see. The present struggles we are going through are nothing compared to the glory that will be revealed to us! (Romans 8:18) I will caveat this by saying you can’t tell yourself what you are to believe and hope for. Refer back to our teachings on faith and how it first must be shown to you in the spiritual realm for you to hope and believe it in the natural. But what I am saying is how many of you even see what you need to believe for because you are not looking to The Lord, but instead to what you think you see. Not at what the Lord says and has for you but what it seems like due to your circumstances.
1 Corinthians 2:9 but just as it is written [in Scripture],
“Things which the eye has not seen and the ear has not heard,
And which have not entered the heart of man,
All that God has prepared for those who love Him [who hold Him in affectionate reverence, who obey Him, and who gratefully recognize the benefits that He has bestowed].”
Brothers and sisters, I caution you, do not be like one deserving pity because you refuse to take up God on His offer of all the things He has in store for you because you are too driven by flesh to see.