Devotional Messages

Eternity

The words of David in today's Psalm remind me of a talk I recently heard at a Christian Men's Convention. The speaker was discussing the need to truly dedicate your life to God in his exposition of Jesus' teaching to "take up your cross and follow me" (Mark 8:34 cf. Luke 9:23). The point was made that our lives truly are fleeting (especially in God's eyes), and what good is it to focus on this world and neglect eternity?

Now this message is a true and good one, and an analogy he used stuck in my mind. He related our lives to a game of Monopoly: so many people, in fact western culture itself, believes that acquisition of material possesions is the ultimate aim of this life, just as the aquisition of property and money is the aim of Monopoly. (I personally have often considered that rather than believing this to be the case, many people assume this to be the case, without real reason or justification for their assumption... except that everyone around them seems to believe similarly.)

So, just like the game of monopoly, many spend their lives acquiring "properties" and "houses" and "hotels"; just like monopoly, they seek to "win" by earning the most money and having the most assetts; but just like Monopoly, when at the end of the game the money and properties are packed away, so too at the end of our lives our material possesions mean nothing; just like Monopoly, at the end of the game any gains or losses we have made (including power, responsibility and standing, as well as the material possessions) mean nothing... And then we must continue on with our real lives where all the material acquired means nothing, and only the spiritual counts.

The message was a powerful and clear one, followed the next day with teaching on the use and persuit of wealth. There are many ways that eternity is ignored in this lifetime, and it remains for the Christian to struggle towards living wholly with his or her eyes on the eternal future: God's Kingdom.

To grasp the importance of focussing on the Kingdom is an important and illuminating thing. An illiterate drunk named Arthur Stace, after hearing a sermon on this topic dedicated his life to God and spent the rest of his days roaming the Sydney streets scribbling "Eternity" in chalk on the walls and sidewalks wherever he went in an effort to make people think about their own eternity (after asking how 'eternity' is written of course).

After realising that 'each man's life is but a breath', David goes on to ask of God: "But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you". And so must the Christian: In this earthly life all rely on things such as food and water for survival, and all seek some form of meaning to life, whether through prestige, standing, wealth, power or through a relationship with God. And our eternal lives depend on the meaning to which we ascribed our earthly lives: did we ignore God and seek fulfillment through other means in order to spend eternity without God? Or did we reject the things of this world seeking instead a fulfilling relationship with God in order to spend eternity in that perfect relationship with our creator that we were seeking and indeed that we were created for?

Praise God for offering His Kingdom to you, and pray that you may live your life focussing on your life to come, trusting in God's plan for your eternity.