by Luke Kincaid
Last week we looked at the importance of living in the present and the fact that we have something unique to offer the kingdom, no matter what stage of life we find ourselves in.
Now, it may seem like a strange correlation but one of the ways we can live life to the fullest in the present is by living with our eternity in mind. When pondering on the infinite nature of eternity my brain eventually comes to a roadblock of understanding when trying to conceptualize what eternity may feel like.
Tony Evans offers the following illustration to help us gain some understanding:
“It’s hard to grasp that eternity is never-ending, but this little illustration may help. Imagine that we could empty the largest body of water in the world, the Pacific Ocean, and fill it with sand as tall as the highest mountain in the world, Mount Everest. Now imagine that a bird flies by and takes one grain of sand off that sand pile once every 100 billion years. How long will it take for that sand pile to disappear? We can consider that amount of time to be equal to one second in eternity.”
What this means is that what we will experience after passing from this life into the next cannot even be compared to our short life on earth.
How should this impact our present?
I found the following points from Westmont Magazine so helpful in answering this question:
“Now, here are some implications of eternity for those inside the family of God. First, when we have our eternity with Christ settled, we can live in an overwhelming sense of peace, since our assurance of heaven is not pinned on our performance, but to the sufficiency of what Christ has done.
Second, we can start looking forward to heaven a little bit. When you see enough suffering in this world, you understand why the Scripture writers look forward to the day when we can finally be together in eternity in the presence of God, where there is no more crying and no more abuse.
Last, when we live in the light of eternity, we develop an urgent sense of mission. What are we doing with our lives that will outlive the grave? If you read the Scriptures you’ll see that the only thing that outlasts the grave is people. Position doesn’t, possessions don’t, status doesn’t, pleasure doesn’t. So we need to orient our lives around people–touching people, feeding hungry people, ministering to people, discipling people, pointing people to Christ. So be careful not to lose your eternal perspective as you live your life today.”
Much love,
Luke
