Eternity. A concept that no one but God has the capacity to fully understand.
We think of eternity as an event. Jesus gave us the inheritance of eternal life. Do we really understand what the means?
I don’t.
Francis Chan questions our understanding of eternity. He says that if we really understood what eternity meant, we would be less concerned with earning towards the last 15 years of our life (retirement) and more concerned with our first 15 million years of eternity.
Really. Stop right now and think about it. What is something you are concerned and worried about? College decisions? Grad school? First career job?
Finding a spouse? Having kids? Making enough money? Having kids leaving for college? Being grandparents? Your funeral?
Whatever it is, how much time do you spend thinking about it? Do you spend more time thinking of those things than you do concerning what you will have for breakfast in the morning? Chances are high those bigger decisions have much more weight.
How much time do you spend thinking about eternity? How much influence does our meeting with God after we die have on your thought life? Does Eternity have more weight than those “big” life decisions?
A year is a long long time. Eternity is longer than a year. It’s even longer than ten years. It’s even longer than one hundred years. That’s longer than most live on earth! But it’s even longer than one thousand, even two thousand years! That’s the length between now and when Jesus was on earth! But it’s even longer than the existence of earth. It’s longer than a trillion years. It’s a thousand million trillion years long. And that’s less than 1% of eternity.
Get the point?
Why do we spend so much time fretting about our comfort, satisfaction, or ease here, while Jesus said what we do here has heavy influence on our eternal position? Should we not be more concerned with that? We are about to move into a city that is lit by the glory of God.
There is the parable about the man who found treasure in a field, so he went and sold all he had and bought the field. Is it not wise to sell and give all that we are, have, and desire for the Glory of God?
I would say so.
Do hard things. Get out of the fog of instant gratification. When is the last time you ate a salad, worked out, then spent time in God’s word and wished you would’ve eaten candy and watched a movie instead? Have you regretted studying in school instead of playing a game? By this pattern, I think the likelihood of us not regretting giving up our desires for God, once in eternity, will be high.
Serving God radically for your whole life is very hard.
There’s an easy way to do it, however. Just serve Him today. That’s all it takes. Just today. Tomorrow, you rest. Remember that every day, and after a lifetime of today’s, you’ll have a complete God glorifying life.
Eternal investment is never wasted. Heaven is God’s kingdom. When we store treasures in His kingdom, we are adding to His glory! He wants that to motivate us, and He is glorified by it.
Eternity is real. Let our focus be on Eternity, and to hear those beautiful and bone-rattling words:
Well done, my good and faithful servant.
