While life is encapsulated in time and space, God is not.  The Apostle Peter taught Jewish exiles who had placed their faith in Christ, that immediate relief and removal of suffering at the hands of Rome may not be God’s plan for their lives.  “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.  The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:8-9 NIV).  

The Apostle had previously written to them of God’s sufficiency for life and the surety of their eternal destiny … “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade — kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith — of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire — may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation [deliverance] of your souls” (1 Peter 1:3-9 NIV).

In his message to these Jews who were believers in Christ,  Peter recalled the words spoken by Jesus to him and the other disciples on the eve of the crucifixion … “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.  In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” (John 14:1-3). 

For Peter, some thirty years had now passed, death was imminent, and Jesus had not returned. God the Holy Spirit had the apostle write … “First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, “Where is this ‘coming ‘ he promised?  Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.  By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men” (2 Peter 3:3-7 NIV). 

Was the promise to return for those who had placed their faith in Him as Savior still valid after nearly two thousand years?  Man would say probably no, except that … “the word of the Lord stands forever” (1 Peter 1:25 NIV).  Therefore, be assured that Jesus’s promise is firm … “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words” (1 Thess 4:16-18 NIV).