It's easy, as Christians, to talk about heaven and hell. It's easy, on Sunday morning, to talk about an afterlife where one group spends eternity in paradise and another spends it in everlasting torment. But at the end of the day--let's be honest with ourselves--do we really live as if it is true? I mean, do we go to school or work and pretend that all our friends or co-workers are going to spend eternity apart from God? We don't. We quietly put our Bibles back on the shelves and go about our day trying not to think of such a terrifying idea.
Sure, we could always pick out some things to blame--most notably the hustle and bustle of life here in America, our going to work everyday, having to pass so many standardized tests and job interviews, having a big and all-important e-mail inbox to distract us, etc. We always act as if these external things on our personal to-do list are the "necessities," and we tend to treat talking about spiritual matters with our non-Christian friends and co-workers as mere afterthoughts, things we're only obligated to do in case we have time, or the rare chance of a prolonged discussion over lunch break.
Isn't it odd, though, that we who are called to look at the big picture, at God's plan of ultimate redemption for humankind, should do just as the world does, and look at the immediate, at the physical nature of things?
Imagine, for a minute, what the world would look like if every Christian truly prioritized eternity over the physical world--and I mean prioritized in their actions and lifestyle as well as their talk on Sunday morning. If eternity was constantly in the forefront of our minds, just how little would the everyday necessities of this life look? How much less hesitant would we be to evangelize to our neighbors next time we see them, rather than excuse ourselves from doing so over some naive concern for answering all the e-mails in our inbox? Just imagine.
In the book of Job in the Old Testament, we learn of a man who "was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil" (Job 1:1, NIV). Job was also rich in the worldly sense of the word--he owned thousands of cattle and held feasts for his children. Then, one day, Job lost all he had. He lost his livestock and his servants and his children. Yet, strangely enough, this is Job's prayer immediately following all the chaos: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, may the name of the Lord be praised" (Job 1:21, NIV).
If anything is clear about Job, it is that Job was an eternity-focused man. Even amidst all his wealth, all his possessions, Job didn't lose sight of the ultimate goal--to live for God. Job may not have been mentally prepared for the mess that was to come or been able to predict it, but spiritually, Job was ready. He had his priorities sorted out--and as a result, he refused to be bogged down by the trials of this life--which, in his case, meant losing everything.
In closing, I leave you with one question: who would you identify yourself with, Job, a man who so clearly held to God's plan of ultimate redemption that losing all the things that made him "great" in the world's eyes meant nothing to him, or a Christian who is ultimately concerned with answering that slew of "necessary" e-mails and "all-important" job interviews, a Christian who talks about eternity at church and in his small group, but altogether forgets the idea as soon as he goes back out into the world?
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