Here are a few quotes on God’s grace, mercy and greatness…

“At the cross, the love of God and the wrath of God shake hands; the mercy of God and the justice of God embrace; and the holiness of God and the sinfulness of humanity appear in stark contrast.” (William P. Farely, from his book – Outrageous Mercy)

“We cannot find God without God. We cannot reach God without God. We cannot satisfy God without God… The decisive part of our seeking is not our human ascent to God, but his descent to us. Without God’s descent there is no human ascent. The secret of the quest lies not in our brilliance but in his grace.” (Os Guinness)

“Never believe anything about yourself or God that makes His grace to you seem anything less than astonishing. Because that’s exactly what it is.” (Randy Alcorn)

“…so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:7).

“Grace is not an opportunity to try harder. It’s an opportunity to marvel at God’s greatness and our weakness. When we realize that He’s God and we’re not – that He’s massive and we’re minute – that’s all it takes for us to become a part of great and powerful God-things!” (Tullian Tchividjian – Billy & Ruth Graham’s grandson and current Sr. Pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church)

“Pray to the Lord to keep you low at his feet, for in no other place can you be largely used of him.” (Charles Spurgeon)

“Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:58).

“If we are to succeed in living by grace, we must come to terms with the fact that God is sovereign in dispensing His gracious favors, and He owes us no explanation when His actions do not correspond with our system of merits.” (Jerry Bridges)

For almost 35 years now, I have been a voracious collector of “quotable quotes,” “nuggets of wisdom,” and “pithy sayings.” I think if I were to count them and put them all together, there would be well over 15,000.

Great quotes boil a whole bunch of truth down into a simple and memorable sentence or two. For the next few weeks, I want to share with you some of the best quotes that I have come across in the past few months.

I pray that these “nuggets” would be an encouragement to your heart and soul, and a stimulus to your mind. Before I go any further, let me add, nothing comes close to or is more important than the actual words of Scripture! Our Bibles should be our steady daily diet. But other books, written by great men and women of God, can help us to grasp and understand many of the riches found throughout the pages of the Bible.

Here are a few quotes on troubles, trials and trusting God…

“Do not be anxious about what may happen tomorrow; the same everlasting Father who cares for you today will take care of you tomorrow and every day. Either He will shield you from suffering, or He will give you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at peace, then, put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations.” (St. Francis de Sales)

“God is in the business of turning rough coals into diamonds through pressure. When we suffer, it is a God-given opportunity to become more like the One who suffered most.” (Randy Alcorn)

“Christ followers contract malaria, bury children, and battle addictions, and as a result, face fears. It’s not the absence of storms that sets us apart. It’s whom we discover in the storm: an unstirred Christ.” (Max Lucado from his new book Fearless)

“Today’s impossibility is tomorrow’s miracle!”

“Let the size of your God determine the size of your goal!”

“May the omnipotence of God be the measure of our expectation!”

“O God, let me make a difference for You that is utterly disproportionate to who I am.” (from the Journal of David Brainerd – American Missionary to the Native Americans – 1718-1747)

“There is nothing which shows our ignorance so much as our impatience under trouble. We forget that every cross is a message from God, and intended to do us good in the end. Trials are intended to make us think—to wean us from the world—to send us to the Bible—to drive us to our knees.” (J. C. Ryle)

If someone were to ask me, “Paul, what do you consider to be, one of the most (if not the most) important character traits in being used by God, in having a happy, healthy marriage and in having long-term successful relationships with friends and family?”

My answer: Humility.

No one has helped me more in understanding what a “prideful, arrogant” life looks like as opposed to a “humble, broken” life than Nancy Leigh DeMoss, in her superb book, Brokenness: The Heart God Revives. This book would certainly be one of the best, most personally impacting books that I have ever read.

The Apostle Peter, probably known as the most naturally arrogant of the disciples in his early years of ministry with Jesus, writes in his later years (after learning many lessons the hard way), the following:

“God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (1 Peter 5:5).

And then he goes on to say: “Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time.”

The force of the Greek text in v. 5 could accurately be translated as, “God stiff-arms the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

How would you like to be “stiff-armed” by God? Not me! I want and need all of the grace from God that I can get.

Notice also in v. 5 “who” is the One that does the “exalting.” God!

Matter of fact, Jesus said in Luke 14:11, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Over the years in ministry, I’ve had dozens of men approach me about wanting to go into full-time ministry. Many times they have tried the “self-promotion” route and have come up empty. In many of these situations, no doors are opened for them and no one seems to be asking.

I always counsel them (only when asked for my opinion), “Faithfully and humbly serve Christ where you are, with the opportunities in front of you and He promises to do the ‘exalting’ when and how He wants. He will open those doors if, when and how He desires. Trust His sovereign hand.”

I’ve learned over the years that there are two ways to end up humble: Either choose to humble yourself before God and others or let God do it for you! Trust me, I’ve been in the second category too many times to count (it’s painful).

Notice that Peter’s command in v. 6 is “humble yourself…” We’re commanded to choose humility each and every day, in all of our relationships and conversations. Humility in our relationships with others begins with humbling ourselves before God.

Augustine, one of the great leaders of the early church, once made this statement:

“If you ask me what is the #1, #2, #3 most important quality of a Christian, I will answer by saying: Humility, Humility, Humility!”

“At the cross, the love of God and the wrath of God shake hands; the mercy of God and the justice of God embrace; and the holiness of God and the sinfulness of humanity appear in stark contrast.”

(William P. Farley, from Outrageous Mercy)

One of my concerns as I view Christianity in America today is that many Christians and churches seem to be more concerned with being culturally relevant than being cross-centered. We must never compromise the message of the cross on the altar of cultural relevance.

Over the next few weeks, I want to share with you a few thoughts on living a “Gospel-centered” (or cross-centered) life. Satan loves nothing more than to get Christians and churches to focus their primary attention on anything other than the “main thing.”

I hope these Scriptures, quotes and thoughts will uplift and encourage your heart.

The Apostle Paul, in writing to the Galatian believers, said…

“As for me, may I never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Galatians 6:14)

C. J. Mahaney, in his excellent book entitled The Cross-Centered Life: Keeping the Gospel the Main Thing, writes, “The Apostle Paul recognized the universal danger of forgetting what is most important. He refused to be pulled away from the gospel. The cross was the centerpiece of Paul’s theology. It wasn’t merely one of Paul’s messages; it was the message. He taught about other things as well, but whatever he taught was always derived from, and related to, the foundational reality that Jesus Christ died so that sinners would be reconciled to God and forgiven by God.”

Theologian D. A. Carson writes of Paul, “He cannot long talk about Christian joy, or Christian ethics, or Christian fellowship, or the Christian doctrine of God, or anything else, without finally tying it to the cross. Paul is Gospel-centered; he is cross-centered.”

In writing to the church in Corinth, Paul said, “For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” (1 Corinthians 2:2)

Jerry Bridges, in his excellent book entitled The Discipline of Grace: God’s Role and Our Role in the Pursuit of Holiness, writes, “The Gospel is not only the most important message in all of history; it is the only essential message in all of history. Yet we allow thousands of professing Christians to live their entire lives without clearly understanding it and experiencing the joy of living by it.”

Most Christians, when they think of the Gospel, they think of John 3:16 and say to themselves, “been there, done that – now let’s move on to ‘other’ spiritual truths.” Because of this, we forget and lose sight of the life-changing, heart-transforming, mind-renewing power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

George Orwell once noted that, “sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious.”

I have found in my own life that it is very easy to begin to lose sight of and appreciation for “the Gospel.” The Gospel is our anchor. It is our center-point.

So what does a “cross-centered” or “Gospel-centered” life look like? Mahaney mentions these…

The symptoms that arise from not being cross-centered are easy to spot. Do any of these describe you?

• You often lack joy.
• You’re not consistently growing in spiritual maturity.
• Your love for God lacks passion.
• You’re always looking for some new technique, some “new truth” or new experience that will pull all the pieces of your faith together.

A cross-centered life helps us to…

• Break free from joy-robbing, legalistic thinking and living.
• Leave behind the crippling effects of guilt and condemnation.
• Stop basing your faith on your emotions and circumstances.
• Grow in gratefulness, joy and holiness.

Next week, I’ll share some more thoughts that, I pray, will help all of us to live and experience true “cross-centered, God-glorifying, joy-filled” lives.

Until then, remember the profound words found in Romans 5:8…

“…but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

We are not only saved by grace, but we also live the Christian life by grace!

This week, I wanted to pass on to you a few thoughts from Gary Brumbelow of the Disciple Nations Alliance. Over the past few years, I have learned a great deal (through books and missions periodicals, as well as many conversations with Christian leaders from around the world) about what it takes to bring true, lasting, godly transformation to people and nations. Listen to Brumbelow’s brief story entitled Milk Cows Can Change the World:

“In his remarkable book, Truth and Transformation, native Indian Vishal Mangalwadi writes about visiting a dairy in Holland.

I had never seen such a dairy! It had a hundred cows, there were no staff on site, and it seemed amazingly clean and orderly. In India we had a small dairy of our own, but our dairy had two workers and it was filthy and smelly.

Vishal was introduced to mechanized milking, but something else was a bigger surprise: the honor system of paying for milk.

We walked into the milk room, and no one was there to sell the milk. I expected Jan to ring a bell, but instead he just opened the tap, put his jug under it, and filled the jug.

His host paid for the milk by making change from the open money bowl on the window sill, and the transaction was done!

Vishal was astonished at such a system and observed that it could only work in a culture of trust and honor.

Beyond that, he points out how such virtues build economic growth.

In a different culture, the milk would be diluted-requiring inspectors, and the money bowl would be pilfered-requiring employees. Hiring employees and paying inspectors would increase the price of milk for everyone.

His takeaway: Moral integrity is a huge factor behind the unique socioeconomic/sociopolitical success of the West.

Virtues grounded in biblical values have benefited the world more profoundly, and in more ways, than many people recognize.”

After I read this post by Brumbelow, it reminded me again of the strategic importance of the power of God’s Truth to transform entire cultures!

Until a person’s worldview is changed so that it is in line with godly values, ethics and morals (which all flow from a proper understanding of the nature of God, i.e. good theology), nothing substantial is going to change. Poverty will continue unabated. The reason why so much poverty continues in many of these countries is because their worldview (belief system) is not in line with Scriptural principles.

When a person has a biblical worldview and lives it out in their day-to-day life, the impact is astounding! Like the example above, when people begin to value and live out honesty and integrity, business tends to flourish. When people begin to value women and children as human beings made in God’s image, they are no longer treated as second-class citizens.

If we want to create lasting change and transformation within the poorest countries of the world, the place to begin is with God’s Truth (i.e. Scripture). Teaching, educating and training indigenous people in the principles of God’s Word is at the root. As they begin to develop a biblical worldview and live it out as followers of Christ, transformation begins to happen in every socioeconomic and sociopolitical area! I have personally witnessed this in the villages and communities of northeast India where we have been involved for over 12 years.

Here is a list of recommended resources that deal with the above issues which I have found extremely helpful…

• Discipling Nations: The Power of Truth to Transform Cultures, by Darrow L. Miller (with Stan Guthrie), copyright 1998.

• Truth and Transformation: A Manifesto for Ailing Nations, by Vishal Mangalwadi, copyright 2009.

• When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty without Hurting the Poor and Yourself, by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert, copyright 2009.

• Giving Wisely: Killing with Kindness or Empowering Lasting Transformation?, by Jonathan Martin, copyright 2008.

• African Friends and Money Matters, by David Maranz, copyright 2001.

• The Aid Trap: Hard Truths about Ending Poverty, by R. Glenn Hubbard and William Duggan, copyright 2009.

• The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good, by William Easterly, copyright 2006.

(Important Note: just because I recommend a particular book does not mean that I endorse every single thing that the author says or believes. I always encourage people to read critically [i.e. discerningly] and learn to take the “good” and leave the “not so good”)

A few weeks ago, I heard a great analogy that describes the role of pastoral and leadership training throughout the developing world…

“Pastoral and leadership training here in America is like opening another restaurant – there’s one on virtually every corner. On the other hand, pastoral and leadership training throughout the developing world is like opening a lone food bank in the midst of starving people!”

I believe that the most effective way, in most situations, of fulfilling the Great Commission is by training the nationals to evangelize, disciple, equip, encourage and minister to their own people. The nationals know the local language, culture and customs, which allows them to immediately begin ministering to their own people without having to face the hurdles of learning a new language and culture.

Several years ago, I was struck by a magazine advertisement in a Christian periodical that showed all of the different types of Bibles available from a particular publisher here in America (note picture to left).

In almost every country where we do pastoral and leadership training, the local pastors are fortunate to have just one complete Bible in their own language. They have no “Study Bibles” available to them.

In a number of locations where we’ve conducted trainings, our staff have brought along copies of the new ESV Study Bible to give to pastors and leaders who can read and understand English. After giving them the new Study Bible, you would have thought that we had just given them a million dollars! They literally hug and hold their new Study Bible like it is their most treasured possession.

I use this illustration often when describing why GTN does what we do… “If you saw ten men trying to carry a heavy log and nine of the men were carrying the lighter tapered end…and only one man was struggling to carry the wider heavier end, which end would you jump toward to give your help?”

As great as the needs are here in America (and we truly have many), compared to much of the developing world, they have 10% or less of what we possess in terms of churches, ministries, and spiritual resources.

Research shows that 95% of pastors throughout the developing world have little to no theological training for their ministries. This is why ministries (of which GTN is one) that bring good biblical training to these indigenous pastors around the world are so vital.

“Until you have found something worth dying for, you have not found something worth living for!”

“Out of all the eternal ages of our existence as God’s children, these tiny years here on earth have a destiny that can never be repeated. The Bible tells us that in the stench of a sick and rotting world we are perfume bottles for the fragrance of Christ (2 Corinthians 2:15). In the gathering darkness we shine as stars (Philippians 2:15). If only we could grasp the awesome implications of these few years!”

(David Needham, from his book Birthright)

Living with an eternal perspective should motivate and encourage us to live our lives responsibly and as good stewards of God’s many blessings.

Contrary to modern secular thought, the primary goal of life here on earth is not to “live it to the fullest” and to “experience maximum fun and adventure.” Not that there is anything wrong with fun and adventure in and of themselves; they are simply not the main objective of life.

In 2 Corinthians 5:9-10 the Apostle Paul tells us that we as Christians will stand before the judgment seat of Christ (the Greek word is bema) to give an account of the stewardship of our time, talent and treasure. At the judgment seat of Christ, we will receive rewards or face the loss of rewards based upon what we did with our life and the works we did while we lived here on earth. This judgment is not for salvation (heaven or hell), but rather for believers in Christ only.

This does not mean that we are saved by works. We are not! Ephesians 2:8-10 and Titus 3:3-5 make that abundantly clear! Scripture teaches that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone! But, Scripture also says, how we live our life after we come to Christ and what we do with our time, talent and treasure is eternally important!

“So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.” (2 Corinthians 5:9-10)

Over in Romans 14 the Apostle Paul says it this way…

“Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written, ‘As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.’ So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.”

This reminds me of a story that appeared in the February 1998 issue of Readers Digest.  The article spoke about a couple “that took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30-foot trawler, play softball and collect shells…” Picture this couple standing before Christ at the great day of judgment: “Look, Lord. See my shells.”

I’m convinced that “until you have found something worth dying for, you have not found something worth living for!”

Solomon, best known for his immense riches and wisdom, said in the book of Ecclesiastes (after trying to find meaning and happiness in every conceivable way) “Life apart from God is empty and meaningless…life only makes sense and has value when lived with God at the center.” (my paraphrase)

Throughout my life, one of my greatest fears has been that I would waste my life. Waste it on things that many would consider to be very good, but ultimately not eternally important. I remember hearing these well known words growing up as a young boy…

“Only one life,

‘Twill soon be past;

Only what’s done

for Christ will last.”

According to Scripture, only two things in life last forever – 1) The souls of people, and 2) God’s Word.  I think Joni Eareckson Tada said it well when she wrote…

“When a Christian realizes his citizenship is in heaven, he begins acting as a responsible citizen of earth. He invests wisely in relationships because he knows they’re eternal. His conversations, goals, and motives become pure and honest because he realizes these will have a bearing on everlasting reward. He gives generously of time, money, and talent because he’s laying up treasures for eternity. He helps spread the good news of Christ because he longs to fill heaven’s ranks with his friends and neighbors.”

Scripture says in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 that “you are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”

John Piper in his excellent book Don’t Waste Your Life, after having just quoted the above verses writes…

“I have written this book to help you taste those words (1 Cor. 6:19-20) as sweet instead of bitter or boring.” And then he goes on to say…

“If you are a Christian, you are not your own. Christ has bought you at the price of his own death. You now belong doubly to God: He made you, and he bought you. That means your life is not your own. It is God’s. Therefore, the Bible says, ‘Glorify God in your body.’ God made you for this. He bought you for this. This is the meaning of your life.”

And then he writes these very profound words…

“It was not always plain to me that pursuing God’s glory would be virtually the same as pursuing my joy. Now I see that millions of people waste their lives because they think these paths are two and not one.”

“God created us to live with a single passion: to joyfully display his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life. The wasted life is the life without this passion. God calls us to pray and think and dream and plan and work not to be made much of, but to make much of Him in every part of our lives.

Most people slip by in life without a passion for God, spending their lives on trivial diversions, living for comfort and pleasure, and perhaps trying to avoid sin. Don’t get caught up in a life that counts for nothing. My challenge to you is to live and die boasting in the cross of Christ and making the glory of God your singular passion.”

Remember: you have one life. That’s all. You were made for God. Don’t waste it!

As I write this, I have just returned from the funeral service for fallen Phoenix Police Officer, Travis Murphy. Travis is the nephew of some long time friends of ours, Dale and Theresa Crull. Officer Murphy was only 29 years old and had a young daughter and a two-week-old son. As you can imagine, his dear wife is heartbroken. Our prayers and sympathy go out to Travis’ entire family.

Thankfully, Travis knew Christ as his Savior and had been born-again (John 3) years before.

As I continue this week in my series on “Heaven: Living here in light of there,” I want to focus a few thoughts that I pray will bring encouragement to your hearts.

As believers in Christ, having an eternal perspective should do two things for us and in us: 1) bring comfort to our hearts and 2) responsibility in how we live.  This week, my focus is bringing “comfort” to our hearts.

A passage of Scripture that I have had memorized now for over 30 years and that has ministered to me time and time again as I have gone through hard times is 2 Corinthians 4:16-18. Here are these three “choice” verses…

“Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, 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.” (NASB)

Or as Romans 8:18 says…

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

Knowing that in heaven we will “rest from our labors” (Revelation 14:13) brings comfort. Life this side of heaven is often tiresome, tedious, painful and discouraging.  Heaven reminds us that one day all of the “tiresome, tedious, painful, discouraging moments” will be eternally over, never to return! Only joy, happiness, peace, love, grace, kindness, righteousness and goodness will be present – forever! You will never be disappointed, discouraged, depressed or deceived ever again. You will never sin or make a wrong or unwise choice ever again! Imagine living in perfect righteousness every moment of every day – forever!

As the psalmist describes life in God’s presence…

“You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” (Psalm 16:11)

C. S. Lewis said this about heaven…

“Joy is the serious business of heaven….In heaven, we will be strong, radiant, wise, beautiful and drenched in joy!”

According to Scripture, when we have a heavenly perspective, it takes the “sting” out of losing temporal possessions here on earth. The writer of Hebrews, speaking to believers who had gone through severe persecution and who had been imprisoned for their faith in Christ, said…

“You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions [in heaven]!”  (Hebrews 10:34)

Imagine someone coming in and taking all your earthly possessions away – house, car, furniture, valuables…everything – and “joyfully” accepting it! How could a person do that? Because they “knew that they had better and lasting possessions [in heaven]!”

According to Hebrews 11, Abraham had a heavenly perspective as he went through life…

“For he [Abraham] was looking forward to the city that has  foundations, whose designer and builder is God…having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth…But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.” (Hebrews 11:10, 13b, 16a)

My encouragement to you this week is: wake up each day with heaven on your mind (Colossians 3:1-4). And allow that eternal reality to bring you comfort as you go through your day…knowing that whatever trials and tribulations, problems or pains that you may be facing, in comparison to eternity, they will be over before you know it!

An eternal perspective: It makes all the difference in the world!

Live “here” in light of “there!”

“Only two things are sure in life: death and taxes,” so goes the famous saying.

A story is told of the famed philosopher Diogenes. He was looking intently at a large collection of human bones that were piled one upon the other. Alexander the Great stood nearby and became curious about what Diogenes was doing.

Diogenes replied, “I am searching for the bones of your father, but I cannot seem to distinguish them from those of the slaves.” Alexander got the point: All are equal in death.

Death has been called “the great equalizer.”

It afflicts the young and the old.
The weak and the strong.
The king and the commoner.
The rich and the poor.
The educated and the ignorant.
Both male and female.
And people of all colors.

Death has no favorites. From the moment of birth, human beings are moving steadily towards death. Current estimates are that at least 53.4 million people die every year (or 102 every minute) throughout the world. One day I will also die (unless Jesus comes back first). So will you.

Let me ask you the following question: Are you ready to face death? Are you afraid of death? Does the thought of it bring fear into your heart? If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, there is absolutely no reason to fear death!

As the Apostle Paul wrote, “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 15:55-57)

As believers in Jesus Christ, we can be confident that heaven awaits us on the other side. Heaven will be eternal, not temporal. Heaven will last forever and ever and ever and ever and ever…and ever! As the well-known line in Amazing Grace says,

“When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun;
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise,
Than when we first begun.”

Imagine living for 10,000 years! How old are you now? I’m almost 50. If this was heaven, I would still have another 9,950 years before reaching the 10,000 year mark. And to think that after 10,000 years, we will have just barely begun!

This is why it is so important that we remind ourselves that, “life on earth is the preface to the book, the warm up to the concert. Heaven is the main event!” (Randy Alcorn)

This is also why Scripture refers to life on earth as “momentary” (2 Corinthians 4:16), a “vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away” (James 4:14), a “breath” (Job 7:7), and “our days on earth are as a shadow” (Job 8:9).

The Psalmist sums it up well when he writes in Psalm 39…

“Show me, O Lord, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man’s life is but a breath.” (vv. 4-5)

Compared to eternity, life on earth is like the blink of an eye or the snap of a finger. Scripture tells us over and over to remember “how brief life on earth is” when compared to “eternity!” When we do this, it gives us perspective. It allows us to view our troubles, afflictions, trials and temptations through the lens of eternity.

“I say the tragedy is how you’re gonna spend
the rest of your nights with the light on
so shine the light on all of your friends
when it all amounts to nothing in the end
I won’t worry my life away . . .”

- Lyrics to ‘The Remedy” by Jason Mraz

Did you catch that? “When it all amounts to nothing in the end.”

This line from the ultra-popular Jason Mraz song sums up what so many people in our culture today believe about life after death. They think that there is no afterlife and that if there is a heaven, it is supposed to be here on this earth – right now.

For many secular people, this world is all there is. A good example is media mogul Ted Turner. In an article published by World magazine several years ago, Turner gave the following summation of this humanistic philosophy:

“Christianity is a religion for losers. You will do a lot better at saving yourself than praying to somebody to save you. I think the savior is right here. With our current technology, we can save ourselves.”

Scripture says that, “It is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). Those that have not placed their faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord will be judged for their sin and will spend eternity separated from God in hell. Those of us that have placed our faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord will not be judged for our sin – because we trusted Christ to save us from our sin (John 3:16-17; Romans 3:21-31)!

Some of you reading this (if you’re old enough) may recall Schlitz Beer. Do remember their slogan?

“You only go around once in life, so grab for all the gusto you can.”

Contrary to the famous Schlitz Beer ad, scripture actually says that you go around twice in life. What you decide about Jesus Christ while on earth in this life, in this world, will determine where you will spend eternity in the next world!

Scripture goes on to say that how we live our lives as believers in Jesus Christ here and now (on earth) will determine how we will live then and there (in heaven) (Matthew 6:19-21; 1 Corinthians 3:10-15; 2 Corinthians 5:1-10).

Any individual holding to the philosophy that “it all amounts to nothing in the end” will naturally develop certain resulting characteristics, or life habits. One example of this is greed. Someone once said:

“Greed is the logical result of the belief that there is no life after death. We grab what we can while we can however we can and then hold on to it hard.”

When you and I realize that this world is not all there is—that the next world, heaven, is our real home—we begin to realize that all that we have, are, and accumulate must be seen as resources by which we can influence and impact people for the world to come.

The Apostle Paul must have been thinking about people like Ted Turner and others when he wrote:

“For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ. Their future is eternal destruction. Their god is their appetite, they brag about shameful things, and all they think about is this life here on earth.

“But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior. He will take these weak mortal bodies of ours and change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same mighty power that he will use to conquer everything, everywhere.” (Philippians 3:18-21 NLT)

The story is told of an elderly missionary couple that arrived at their home port after years of faithful service. At the dock, an ambassador and his wife who had returned on the ship with them were surrounded by a crowd. Roses were bestowed on his wife as photographers’ flashes exploded, and an attentive, admiring press and public hung on every word as he spoke of the joy of serving his government and coming home. As the missionary couple walked unnoticed through that crowd, the wife, with hot tears streaking down her face, wondered out loud to her husband, “Why is it that we have given our whole lives to Christ and yet there is no one here to honor us and welcome us home?” Her understanding husband, reaching beyond that lonely moment, said to her, “Honey, we’re not home yet.”

I love what Randy Alcorn has written about the reality of heaven as our “real home”…

“Heaven is our real home. Home is acceptance, security, rest, refuge, deep personal relationships, great memories. Home is where your treasure is. If heaven is your home, then your mind and heart and treasure will be there also.”

Until next week, my prayer for you is…

“May the LORD bless you and keep you;
may the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
may the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”
(Numbers 6:24-26)