In 2 Peter 3:12 we are told that we are to be looking forward to the Day
of God with eager anticipation as if our eagerness might somehow hasten its coming. But
what is it about the Day of God that we are to long for so intently in this passage? It is
the complete dissolution by fire of the visible heavens and earth: our physical realm in
which we live with all its works (verse 10). I wonder how many of us long for the
destruction of our own personal physical realm that we have worked so hard to acquire and
maintain.
Oh to be sure, we are ready enough to be released from the burdensome
troubles associated wit h this fallen world, but what about our treasured comforts and
possessions: our lands, homes, cars, furnishings, and all the other earthly things with
which we are so enamored now? If the treasure of our hearts is not wholly in things
eternal, it can only compromise that sweet anticipation that we should have for the coming
Day of God.
Will we be like Lot and his wife: hesitant to the last to lose all the
things of this world they had treasured so highly, at the expense of the true blessings
that God would have given them? How much better to be like Abraham who “looked for a
city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God!” (Heb. 11:10) Is not
friendship with the world enmity with God? (James 4:4) This “friend of
God,”Abraham, would not take so much as “a thread to a shoe latchet” from
the world, but “lifted up his hand unto Jehovah, the Most High God, the possessor of
heaven and earth.”(Gen. 14:22-23)
With irony we note what Lot sought so earnestly was totally lost to him
along with the last shred of his dignity. On the other hand, the material blessing that
God bestowed upon Abraham was not a master to him but rather a servant, that he might use
it for the glory of God in His work.