Monday, August 27, 2012

To Focus on Things Eternal

Where do you focus your heart, your eyes, your time, your resources, your energy.....?

Come now, ye that say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a city and continue there a year, and buy and sell and get gain”;  whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.  Instead ye ought to say, “If the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that.” James 4:13-15

I've been asking myself these hard questions over the past few years.  Motivational questions, soul searching, introspective, life altering questions.  Why am I here really, what is His purpose for me in this life, where am I storing up my treasures and what are those treasures?  Where is my true center of gravity, the things that keeps me anchored to what is true, what is pure, what is everlasting? What do my treasures, my offerings of this earthly existence mean to the One who matters most?! What am I doing in this moment, in this day, in this life that reaches far beyond today? How do I, how can I truly make a difference?

These questions and the answers to them defy gravity, go beyond the scope of time and reach to places we do not comprehend. They are questions that have answers found in eternity and nowhere else. Nowhere else that is of any significance anyway. Far reaching, time expanding, and focusing on the eternal.



In living this existence, we must simultaneously embrace the future and our own eternal purpose. Our hearts must be searching for these answers, this purpose every day.  We must live out eternity as we walk along side Him now knowing we haven't begun to understand what He has in store and let Him lead.  Our hearts must embrace this truth with a yearning that is only satisfied with fulling His will. Nothing else will do. 

A sweet friend recently posed the question: What does eternity look like in your heart?  In living today for the bright hope of eternity's tomorrow, my eternity looks something like this:  

  • An infinite longing to be there, live it, breathe it, see and embrace Him even as I walk day-to-day through this fleshly journey, to bask in His light 24/7, where love and justice reign supreme. 
  • A aching passion to live this life for Him, with Him, through Him, with Him living in me, with nothing ordinary in seeing through His eyes a divine purpose in all things. 
  • An unending thirst to dedicate my life, my time, my resources to His service and for His glory, not just some of it but all of it, to spread His goodness and His name rather than my own, to step out of my comfort zone to follow His call knowing and trusting, to help others, to be His hands and feet, and fulfill His perfect will rather than my own fleshy desires. 
  • A overwhelming desire for others to know Him, seek Him, with hearts and lives dedicated to His glory and for others to see Him in me, my life a reflection of Him. 
  • A soothing comfort and unexplainable peace in knowing there is something so much better, Someone so much bigger, knowing that this is not the end and that there is something more beyond this life that is unexplainable in mere human terms, infinitely perfect, everlasting and beautiful.....

 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. 2 Cor 4:17-18

For we know that if our earthly house, this tabernacle, were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 Cor 5:1

  

Some hard questions to ask. Their answers make a difference now and for all eternity. For you, for others. Are you living your eternity here, now....?