How Will You Spend Eternity?

A little girl was taking an evening walk with her father. Wonderingly, she looked up at the stars and exclaimed; "Oh, Daddy, if the wrong side of heaven is so beautiful, what must the right side be!"    -Charles L. Allen in Home Fires

Everyone who is born into this world will also have to leave it and for most people their deepest instincts and convictions tell them there is something beyond the grave. Creation teaches us that our instincts point to reality. The carrier pigeon when transported from its home has an instinct within it that guides it back no matter the time or the distance involved. And man is worth much more than a bird. Creation also teaches that life can pass through different forms and that life may even come out of death.

The common butterfly lives the first part of its existence as a crawling caterpillar. After fulfilling its course, the caterpillar curls up and seemingly dies and lies in a death like state for many days. Then out of that body a beautiful butterfly comes to life. No longer forced to crawl on the ground, it spreads its wings and flies upwards. Men and women also spend a short time on earth and then have to move on. For each one of us there comes a moment when time ceases, a moment when we leave the realm of time and enter another realm, the realm of eternity.

Since God is eternal, His dwelling place is also eternal. God Himself describes His own eternal nature and realm as “Being the One who inhabits eternity”. Eternity is an aspect of God’s own nature, the realm in which God has His being. Many people are confused by the word "eternity". They commonly tend to think of eternity as being merely an immensely long period of time, beyond the power of the human mind to conceive. Eternity, however, is not merely the endless extension of time. Eternity differs in its nature from time. It is an altogether different realm, a different mode of being.

Eternity is God’s own nature and mode of being, the uncreated realm in which He exists. God out of eternity, by the act of Creation, brought into being the present world and with it the order of time, past, present and future. By another divine act, God one day will bring this present world to an end, and with it time as we now know it, will again cease to be.

As individuals we cannot wait for the end of this present world order. A moment lies ahead for each one of us when time shall be no more, a moment when each one of us shall come to the end of time’s course and step out from time into eternity.

Death is our universal fate because of our descent from Adam, but death is not the end - a resurrection follows. Death is the vehicle that takes us home. We should always remember that here on earth we are pilgrims on our way home. Unfortunately many of us call the wrong place home and live our lives as if everything ends here. This place with so many troubles, pain, anguish and hurt cannot be home.

None of us are going to heaven because we have been good and have lived charitable lives. We are going to heaven because Christ died on that cross for us – because He paid the penalty for our sin. For each of us a time is coming when we will step from time and into eternity. But is it eternity with the Lord? We can only be sure when Jesus Christ is our Savior.

The time we spend here on earth though short determines where we spend eternity. Where will you spend eternity? Will it be in the presence of God? Jesus said, “I am the Resurrection and the Life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. I died, and behold I am alive forever more, and I hold the keys of hell and death. Because I live, you shall also live.”

Scripture: Psalms 39:4-39:12; Revelation 21:1-21:4; Matthew 25:46; Romans 10:13; Luke 23:43; 2 Peter 3:9; Hebrews 9:27

Prayer: Merciful God, we have sinned in what we have thought and said, in the wrong we have done and in the good we have not done.We have sinned in ignorance: we have sinned in weakness:we have sinned through our own deliberate fault. We are truly sorry. We repent and turn to you. Forgive us, for our Savior Christ's sake, and renew our lives to the glory of your name. Amen

Bless you always,

Marilyn