Daily Manna · Day 148 · May 28
Beyond Imagination
“Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.”
Paul wrote this letter to the church in Corinth around the year 55. Corinth was a proud, busy city that admired polished public speakers. Yet Paul says of his first visit there, "I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling." From the start he refused to compete on the city's terms.
That is the background to a real question in this chapter: who gets to know what God is doing? The church in Corinth had begun sorting itself into ranks. Paul says each of them was saying, "I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ." This teacher's followers sat over here, and that teacher's followers sat over there.
So Paul draws on Isaiah and writes, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." He does not leave it hanging as a mystery, though. In the very next sentence he does something nobody in Corinth would expect, and closes the gap: "But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit." What no eye could reach has been given to us by God Himself. Nobody bought it, and nobody received it because of their rank. And look at the address on the parcel: it goes to "them that love him," whether they are clever or ordinary.
Some of the question stays open, and it should. Nothing you have seen or been told sets a limit on what God has prepared. So every picture you hold of the future can still change, including the shrunken one that grief leaves behind.
Be exact about that address, then. You do not qualify for this promise by understanding it, or by belonging to the right group. It goes to those who love God, and that is where He delivers it. If you love Him today, however weakly, it has your name on it.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 148 is Word or Epistle (2 Thessalonians 2:15).