Daily Manna · Day 178 · June 27
Abiding Forever
“And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.”
Picture a tide going out, with two people standing in it.
One of them has built everything above the waterline, and he knows it: the job title, the renovated house, the reputation he works hard to keep. The other has built almost nothing. He is ashamed of that, and he reads this verse as one more reminder of how little he has to show.
John's sentence speaks to both of them, and differently: "the world passeth away, and the lust thereof." That is present tense. The world is already passing, right now, and it takes its cravings with it. The second man should notice the mercy in that before he skips past it, because the things he is ashamed of lacking are passing away too. What lasts is not the person who built the most, or the one with the strongest feelings, or the one with the best intentions. It is "he that doeth the will of God." John leaves out the one who admires God's will or means to do it someday. He says the one who does it.
So the truth cuts both men the same way. Nothing you have is permanent, and nothing you lack shuts you out. What carries over into forever is doing the will of God, and John promises that the one who does it "abideth for ever." That door is open to both men this afternoon, and it costs nothing but the doing.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 178 is Hitherto (1 Samuel 7:12).