T. W. Hunt - The Hope of Glory: Seeing the World from Heavens View

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2013 by T. W. Hunt and Melana Hunt Monroe

Previously published as From Heavens View

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ISBN-13: 978-1-61521-732-8

Cover design by Arvid Wallen

Some of the anecdotal illustrations in this book are true to life and are included with the permission of the persons involved. All other illustrations are composites of real situations, and any resemblance to people living or dead is coincidental.

Unless otherwise identified, all Scripture quotations in this publication are taken from the New American Standard Bible ( NASB ), Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. Other versions used include: the Amplified Bible ( AMP ), The Lockman Foundation 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987; the Holy Bible , New Living Translation ( NLT ), copyright 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved; the Holy Bible, New International Version ( NIV ). Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved; the New King James Version ( NKJV ). Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved; and the King James Version ( KJV ).

Hunt, T. W., 1929

The hope of glory : seeing the world from heavens view / T.W. Hunt and Melana Hunt Monroe.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-61521-732-8

1. HopeReligious aspectsChristianity. 2. ChristianityEssence, genius, nature. I. Monroe, Melana Hunt. II. Title.

BV4638.H86 2013

248.4dc23

2012031719

Printed in the United States of America

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 / 18 17 16 15 14 13

To Steve Monroe, who did the most
to inspire the writing of this book.

Contents

[I pray] that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you
may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

E PHESIANS 3:16-19

Preface

As our Maker, God created each person with specific objectives in mind. Only He sees the overall picture of each of our lives. He knew what our circumstances would be and what our work would be, all within the framework of His intention for the kind of person we would be. We best fulfill our purpose when we see all of life from His viewpoint. Logically, we can know His joy (really co-joy with Him) when we are receiving divine direction from the One who created us with purpose.

As our redeemer, God has a role for us in His kingdom work, and that includes right now. Because we are partners together with Him in His work (1 Corinthians 3:9), we need direction in carrying out our responsibilities. Of course, we are very junior partners and God is the divine Master in His work. God does not need us at all. In His omnipotence, no task is large or small, but His beneficent love includes us even in our small portion of His work. We can work with God only when we perceive His perspective on what we are doing.

Most of us will have to shift gears for our outlook to be heavenly rather than worldly (see the sidebars in chapter 1). We can either continue our lifelong habits that are shaped by the world around us or choose to learn to think in a new mode, but it will not be easy. Thinking Heavens thoughts requires a continuous effort. Real intercessory prayer is hard work. Do not be discouraged if you find yourself slipping into old, familiar ways of thinking. God works in us in process (Mark 4:26-29; see also chapter 4). An infinite God is patient with us in our struggles (2 Peter 3:9). We can learn patience with ourselves only by keeping our attention focused on Jesus (Hebrews 12:1-2).

He thought His Fathers thoughts 24/7 (John 5:30), a daunting task for us. Yet Paul, according to his letters, very nearly thought Gods thoughts during all his waking hours: in church, in prison, in shipwreck, in a walk through the streets of Athens. Our model is Jesus, but Paul and most of the writers of the New Testament proved that a finite human can come close to imitating our Lord.

We wrote this book to help you see all of life from Gods perspective that is, from Heavens view. All twelve chapters treat life in general from Heavens view; two of the twelve discuss Heavens view of all kinds of suffering. As you will see, many of the insights in these pages were forged when my (T. W.s) wife, Laverne, and my daughter, Melana, were diagnosed with cancer. When this book was first published, both were cancer survivors and doing well. However, in 2001 Lavernes cancer came back and she died in 2009. While the pain of losing Laverne was severe, the truths and insights in this book brought comfort and helped give meaning to our grief.

We will be praying that you, the reader, take seriously the biblical injunctions to conform to the image of Christ and diligently apply these insights to your daily walk.

Note to the Reader: Some of the ideas in this book differ from the usual approach to the Christian life, and we struggled with the simplest and most useful means of communicating difficult concepts. By Heavens view, we usually mean how God sees our circumstances and us. Daniel referred to God as Heaven in Daniel 4:26. To keep our meaning of heaven clear, we chose to capitalize it because it usually refers to divinity. We capitalized Gods pronouns throughout, mainly to help you keep track of the antecedents in our sentences. When heaven refers to a place, we did not capitalize it in the hope that you can distinguish our destination from the main idea of the book: learning to look at ourselves through Gods eyes.

At times it became necessary to use Heavens view to refer to how Gods angels and the redeemed with Him in heaven see Him, as in the sections on His attributes. Even there, the occupants of heaven see Him, in kind, as He knows Himself. Context indicates whether we are looking at Gods viewpoint or that of all of Heaven.

To make our point, we often had to repeat key passages of Scripture, so we had to choose whether to write them out every time or refer to a previous citation. Those earlier citations often occurred far from the current passage, possibly several chapters back. To keep the ideas moving, we felt it would be helpful to repeat them fully in the various new contexts. Therefore, certain significant Scriptures are repeated frequently, especially in the Corinthian letters, Romans, and Hebrews. We hope it facilitates your understanding and the flow of your reading.