Day 4: Made to Last Forever

Ecclesiastes 3:11 – “He hath made everything beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.”

Surely God would have created such a being as man to exist only for a day! No, no, man was made for immortality. –Abraham Lincoln-

Earth is the staging area, it is a try out for your life in eternity-than you will here. This life is preparation for the next. You have an inborn instinct that longs for immortality. This is because God has designed me, in His image, to live for eternity.

Even though we know everyone eventually dies, death always seems unnatural and unfair. The reason we feel we should live forever is that God wired our brains with that desire! One day my heart will stop beating and that will be the end of my body and my time on earth, but it will not be the end of me, because my earthly body is just a temporary residence for my spirit.

While life on earth offers many choices, eternity offers only two: heaven or hell. Your relationship to God on earth will determine your relationship to him in eternity. If I learn to love and trust God’s Son, Jesus, I will be invited to spend the rest of eternity with him. On the other hand, if I reject his love, forgiveness, and salvation, I will spend eternity apart from God forever.

“There are two kinds of people: those who say to God ‘Thy will be done’ and those to whom God says, ‘All right then, have it your way.’ (C.S. Lewis)

Tragically, many people will have to endure eternity without God because they chose to live without him here on earth. Once I fully comprehend that there is more to life than just here and now, and I realise that life is just a preparation for eternity, I will begin to live differently. Then I will start living in light of eternity, and that will show me how to handle every relationships, task and circumstance. Suddenly many activities, goals, and even problems that seemed so important will appear trivial, petty and unworthy of my attention. The closer you live to God, the smaller everything else appears.

This life is preparation for the next

Living in the light of eternity will change your values. You will use your time and money more wisely.  You begin to place a higher premium on relationships and character instead of fame or wealth or achievements or even fun, and your priorities are recorded. Keeping up with trends, fashions and popular values just doesn’t matter as much anymore.

Death is not our termination, but our transaction into eternity, so there are eternal consequences to everything you do on earth. The most damaging aspect of contemporary living is short-term thinking. To make the most of your life, you must keep the vision of eternity continually in your mind and value it in your heart.

What is it going to be like in eternity with God? Well, basically our minds cannot comprehend the wonder and greatness of heaven. It would be like trying to describe the Internet to an ant. God has a purpose for your life on earth, but it doesn’t end here. His plan involves far more than the few decades you will spend on this planet. It’s more than “the opportunity of a lifetime”; God offers you an opportunity BEYOND your lifetime.

The only time most people think about eternity is at funerals, and then it’s often shallow, sentimental thinking, based on ignorance. You may feel it’s sullen to think about death, but actually it’s unhealthy to live in denial of death and consider what is inevitable. Only a fool would go through life unprepared for what we all know will eventually happen. We need to think MORE about eternity, not less. If you have a relationship with God through Jesus, you don’t need to fear death. It is the door to eternity. It will be the last hour of your time on earth, but it won’t be the last of you. Rather than being the end of your life, it will be the birth day of your eternal life.

This world is not our home; we are looking forward to our everlasting home in heaven

Measured against eternity, our time on earth is just a blink of an eye, but the consequences of it will last forever. The deeds of this life are the destiny of the next. We should be “realizing that every moment we spend in these earthly bodies is time spent away from our eternal home in heaven with Jesus.”

Point to ponder: There is more to life than just here and now

Verse to Remember:

  “And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.” (I John2:17)

Question to Consider: Since I was made to last forever, what is the one thing I should stop doing and the one thing I should start doing today?

(A Purpose-Driven Life)