The fourth way to keep an eternal perspective is (4) when you are feeling down and out, don’t check out or zone out but zoom out. As we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. Sometimes, the problems, afflictions or trials in our life become all-consuming in that moment and we lose the big perspective. People get caught up in reactionary emotion and cannot is beyond the immediate issue. God can use light momentary afflictions to move us into greater ministry opportunities. God can use the tribulations of life to work his masterpiece in us, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Like Christ’s crucifixion, God turns the seemingly depressing defeat into the ultimate victory over sin and death for eternity, a pathway to Heaven through the forgiveness of sins.
When we go through the trials of life in this fallen world, it is easy to get drawn into the discouragement and be tempted to lose heart. Christian, do not grow weary in doing good. Zoom out and look at those problems with the perspective of eternity and God’s over-arching plan to reconcile and restore this world. God is working a greater masterpiece that you do not see at the moment. Remember what the Lord Jesus said in John 16:33, “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” We live in a fallen in sin world on this side of eternity. We have to deal with problems in life, but deal with them from the God’s over-arching and eternal perspective.
Psalm 90:10-12 “The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty;
yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away. Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you? So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.”
In 2021, a worldwide study showed that the average life expectancy was 73.2 years. Imagine the timeline of your life in the timeline of history. We can illustrate this with the use of a rope, with the near end being the Genesis 1:1 beginning of God’s creation. About 18 inches along that rope, God sent Jesus Christ to redeem the world and divide time as BC AND AD. BC (B.C.) is an abbreviation used in the Julian calendar, then later the Gregorian calendar (introduced in October 1582), that means "before Christ." The letters AD (A.D.), although commonly thought to represent "After Death," actually stand for "Anno Domini," a Medieval Latin phrase that is translated as "in the year of our Lord." The original designation for this type of year also included the Latin words "Jesu Christi" or "Jesus Christ" written after the word "Lord."
About 24 inches along that rope, we find our life, less than an inch from beginning to end. Everything that you work for, stress about, poured your blood sweat and tears into happens within that tiny length of rope and then you are off into eternity. The rope keeps going after our time on this earth. Ten feet along that rope is one hundred million years. Twenty-five feet along the rope is one-hundred billion years. Forty feet along the rope is is a trillion years into eternity. Do you get the point? That rope keeps on going, and eternity is infinitely long. Your plus or minus seventy to eighty years of life (on average) in comparison and in the light of eternity, our problems are put into proper perspective. All the battles that you fight, all the heartache and suffering, all the worry and stress that you endure, and all the pain and ailments take place within that thin span of time, then we spend the rest of our life in eternity.
You are a created eternal spiritual being, made up by body, soul (mind, will and emotion) and spirit, so your existence will outlast your physical body. You will live this short life, then spend eternity somewhere. It is either it is going to be with sovereign God in the kingdom of Heaven, or without God in Hell. Heaven is heaven, not primarily because it is paradise, but because the presence of Almighty God is there. Hell is not Hell because of the Lake of Fire or the weeping and gnashing of teeth, but primarily because God is not there (no Light, no Mercy, no Good, no God).
Sin is defined as the voluntary departure of a moral agent from a known rule of rectitude or duty, prescribed by God; any voluntary transgression of the divine law, or violation of a divine command; a wicked act; iniquity. Sin is either a positive act in which a known divine law is violated, or it is the voluntary neglect to obey a positive divine command, or a rule of duty clearly implied in such command. Sin comprehends not action only, but neglect of known duty, all evil thoughts purposes, words and desires, whatever is contrary to God's commands or law. Habakkuk 1:13 “You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on wickedness.” Sin is against our Just and Holy Creator God. Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
What you do during this momentary temporal time that we have on planet Earth will determine where you spend the rest of eternity. Let us be future focused with our faith. Let us live with eternity in mind. What are you living for? People are too content with their life now that they, that they don’t seriously think about the world to come. Are you living for the things that outlast this life? People are too busy with living for today and working towards their retirement in this life, rather than working for eternal things in the next. In Matthew 6:19-20 Jesus warns, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.” Are you living for eternity?
God is in control. Let us live with an eternal perspective, and then when you view your problems that you face, it makes everything much clearer. Even the problem of death is put into its proper perspective when we zoom out and see the whole picture. The worst that this world can do to the true Christian is kill us, but because we spend eternity with the Lord in Heaven, to die is gain. Soon this life will pass, and only what is done for Christ will last.
In Christ, Brian
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