New Morning Mercies #280

Without eternity in the center of our thinking, our picture of life is like a jigsaw puzzle missing a central piece.

One of the themes of this devotional is that all human beings have a theological bent, whether they consider themselves religious or not. Everyone wants life to make sense. Everyone is a committed interpreter. No one leaves his or her life alone. We all pick our lives apart, trying to make sense of them. We all develop our own systems of theology, biblical or otherwise. We all develop particular philosophies of life. We all carry around with us worldviews that shape the way we think, the things that we desire, the choices that we make, the words that we say, and the actions that we take. None of us is passive. We all shape the way life looks to ourselves.

So God, knowing who we are and knowing that we are hardwired to make sense of our lives, has given us his Word. In it, he reveals who he is, he defines who we are, he explains the meaning and purpose of life, he unfolds the greatest of humanity’s problems—sin—and he points us to the hope of his amazing grace. He doesn’t tell us everything, because we would not be able to understand everything or deal with it in our daily lives, but he does give us all the necessary pieces of an “origin-to-destiny worldview” so we can live as we were created to live.

Essential to this biblical worldview is eternity. The Bible confronts us with the reality that this is not all there is. It tells us that this world is marching toward a final conclusion. You and I are eternal beings who will spend eternity somewhere. It will either be in the presence of God forever and ever or separated from him in a place of eternal punishment forever and ever.

The reality of eternity infuses the here and now with seriousness and hope. The way you live is important because there is an eternity to follow. The choices you make are important because there is a forever. The things you believe are important because the world is moving toward eternity. The things you surrender your heart to are important because there is an eternal tomorrow. You simply cannot hold to an “all that’s important is the pleasures of the moment” view of life and believe in eternity at the same time. In light of eternity, it makes no sense to forget God and live for yourself. In the face of eternity, it is irrational to write your own rules and demand your own way. Eternity requires you to take life seriously.

But eternity also fills this moment with hope. Because I know that this is not all there is, I also know that the sin, trials, and sufferings of the present will not last forever. For God’s children, eternity promises that sin will die, suffering will end, our trials will be no more, and we will live with God in perfect peace forever and ever and ever. You just can’t make proper sense of life without viewing it from the perspective of eternity.

For further study and encouragement: John 5:19–29