Is It For Here, Or To Go?

     There once was a man who decided it would be a fantastic idea to throw a feast for all of the people in his town.  Calling upon his servants, he prepared a meal that could not be contended with by any other, and then sent them out to proclaim the universal invitation to the people.  Many came, and upon tasting the sweet delicacies the man had prepared and partaking in the festivities that followed, it could be concluded there was nothing like this extraordinary party.  At least…that is how the master of the house felt, and soon as the party prematurely began to wane, his heart grew heavy with the open denial of the people.  For you see, many got up from their seats, speaking of meals eaten before, feeling too ashamed of what they held onto and removed themselves of such an extravagant event.  Others were lost in the maybe’s and what if’s, and left to seek out the possibility of a greater party.  And lastly, there were those who had tasted the feast, acknowledged its magnificence, yet concluded that their preferences were elsewhere, and thus proceeded to flee out to the desert, shoveling sand in their mouths as they shamefully grumbled, “Satisfy me!  Satisfy me!  Satisfy me!”

Life and time are both very precious things.  We are not promised a moment on this earth, and yet we spend it oftentimes as if we have all of the time in the world.  As a cancer survivor, God has used a very difficult time in my life to reveal to me the preciousness of every moment.  We are not promised some romantic/emotional ending to our time here on Earth, with loved ones weeping at our bedside as we express some profound wisdom to echo in eternity.  To be blunt, I had a friend take his life with his father’s gun when he was nine.  In high school, three of my friends and classmates lost a parent.  An old classmate of mine just recently died of a heroine overdose.  I could sit here and list off many other people I personally knew who “died too early,” and I know for a fact that you have plenty to share, yourself.  This is why I believe Moses, in Psalm 90, cries out to God to “teach us to number our days, that we might grow a heart of wisdom (v. 12).”  In his book, “The Screwtape Letters,” C.S. Lewis makes an interesting point.  As the demon, Screwtape, writes his nephew in regards to humanity and time, he says this:

The humans live in time but our Enemy destined them to eternity.  He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time which they call the Present.  For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity.

He then goes on to talk about two ways of distraction for an individual in regards to time.  Firstly, he ponders the possibility of making somebody dwell on the past, but then concludes that they should not chiefly focus on that because it has the potential to teach the person and help them grow from past experiences.  They finally conclude that focusing on the future is the best option because it holds no value essentially to anything.  The difference between having an eternal mindset and one that is set on the future is that thinking eternally is thinking about God.  If I have an eternal mindset, my life’s aims today are faced with the intent of how they will affect my eternity with my King.  Thinking merely on the future, while losing sight on the present deals with what-if’s and maybe’s.  In the end of the passage, Screwtape proclaims:

We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow’s end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present.

That last line has hit me heavy for a while now, and to this day I cannot help but stop often and ask myself if I am using today’s blessings to heap up an offering to the altar of the future, thus missing out on what God has for me now.  Three things you need to understand in regards to time:

1. The Past is Over: No matter how much you would love for this to be a possibility, the past cannot be changed.  What’s done is done–or like the beloved David Bowie says in Labyrinth, “What’s said, is said.”  You cannot undo the hurt you have caused on others or yourself, but here is the beautiful part.  Because of Christ’s redemptive act of selfless love and fulfilled justice on the cross, your past holds no ground, and you have a new foundation and cornerstone found in Him (Mat. 21:42).  The beauty of God’s adopting us, as mentioned in Romans 8, is that God knows our ugly past, yet still says, “I want him, and I want her.”  And the payment for your adoption came with the murder of His beloved Son on a cross, and now you have a new name, a new inheritance, and a new future!  So take your past, and use it to grow as you cry out to your Abba!
2. Your Future Doesn‘t Exist: Well…at least for you.  In God’s eternity (separateness of time), it does, but we are finite and created beings bound BY time FOR the time being (see what I did there?).  We often sit and ponder what is to happen in our future…will I ever find true love?  What do I want to do when I’m older?  I want _______.  I’m working toward my retirement.  There are two things that are dangerous with this.  Firstly, it’s selfish, and secondly, it’s not for sure.  You could spend your whole life pursuing one thing, only to find that your end is completely different than you anticipated.  I had no intentions of having cancer…I wasn’t planning on going to Liberty for college…I wasn’t expecting to return home after college.  We can even tread on dangerous water if we focus our time now wondering what we are going to do for God later.  You see, it’s masked with good intentions, but that time is still being wasted!  There is a solution to this, and that’s where we are headed…but finally:
3. You’re Only Promised Now: Just Like Lewis commented in the above passage, the Present is vitally important for us because it is the only time we have an opportunity to act.  It is in the Present when God, in His glorious eternity and infinite, touches our lives.  Take this encouragement: Every breath, every second, every moment you are here on this Earth is a promise from God that He is not done with you yet!  So here’s my question to you:

What Are You Doing Now With That Time?

I’m as serious as a heart attack right now.  If you are not promised another second, what are you doing right now to live your life to its fullest?  The way the Holy Spirit has convicted me of it as of recently is by this question: If God sat you down and told you that He was calling you Home in the next ten years, what would you be pursuing?  I think that this question honestly has the potential to reveal our passions, our callings, or–more fearfully–what our gods are.  What are you putting your time into?  What am I?  Because, like Robin Williams mentions in The Dead Poets Society, we are food for worms.  If you haven’t seen that movie, you should!  It’s thought-provoking and entertaining, but one of the most famous messages presented in the film regards time.  Robin Williams takes his class to a photo of previous graduates who are long dead, and challenges them to make the most of today, proclaiming “Carpe Diem (Seize the Day)!”  The one thing I found lacking in that scene is that it does not look to a Savior or eternity.  You see, we have an eternity, though being created beings, our time’s expiration on Earth does conclude with our expiration of existence.  Therefore, what we do in life on Earth affects our eternity.  In a presentation done by ACSI’s president, Dr. Dan Egeler, he challenged Christians to rather “Carpe Aeternitatem (Seize Eternity).”  So here’s the crux of my message:

The Gospel Does Not Just Secure Your Eternity…It Gives You True Life NOW!!!

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.  I came that they may have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10 ESV).”  And yet, much like the master with the feast, God has given us true life to live now, and instead we have run out to the desert, shoveling sand in our mouths gasping, “Satisfy me!  Satisfy me!  Satisfy me!”  This is the group from my analogy that breaks my heart the most, yet it is also the group that I relate to most.  Read what God has to say about Israel in Jeremiah 2:12-13…

“Be appalled, O heavens, at this;

be shocked, be utterly desolate,

declares the Lord,

 for my people have committed two evils:

they have forsaken me,

the fountain of living waters,

and hewed out cisterns for themselves,

broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

     God did so many miraculous things for His people; saved them from Egypt, parted the Red Sea for them, guided them by pillars of fire and dust, provided for them in the desert wanderings.  Yet despite all of the things He poured into them, they still turned around and looked back to Egypt.  They still turned from God, and it broke His heart….

     …..But you and I are not much different.  Here He has lavished His love on us, not that we first loved Him, but He loved us and sent His Son to die for us (I John 4:10).  But what do we do?  Where do we put our stock and time?  Relationships?  Work?  Money?  Provisions?  Church?  Media?  We have tasted the feast, and yet more often than not, we look back to our Egypt.  We leave the feast in favor of the desert.  My friends, this cannot be our end.  So here’s my final question:

Is It For Here?  Or To Go?

Just like the cashier consistently asks us when we order our beloved fast food.  Is your life for here (Earth)?  Or is it to Go (Eternity).  It’s Carpe Aeternitatem! What are you doing now to affect your eternity?  Matthew 6:19-24 lays it out pretty clearly, calling us to not lay up treasures here on Earth, and saying that we can only have one Master…one priority…one end.  I love Paul, and I love his passion for the Gospel in Philippians, and in chapter 3 he is challenged with his authority to teach (the boasting in the flesh).  He then goes on a long list of why he has reason to boast in his earthly authority, but then what is his conclusion?

“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.  Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.  For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ…(vv. 7-9)”

That was the level of his resolve.  Anything deemed of high value on this Earth, he counted as rubbish compared to Christ.  And guess what, he wrote all of this while he was locked up in prison!  His mindset was eternity-bound, saying “for me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain (Phil. 1:21).”  In other words, “I’m going to keep preaching the Gospel until my time here on Earth is done, and when I die, I win!  You’ve got nothing on me, world!”  Is that the mindset we have?  Are we so consumed with God and what Jesus has done, that EVERYTHING in this world seems small?  I’m not just talking about the problems in this world, but also the good things.  Is it for here?  Or to go?  And Paul doesn’t say he’s perfect!  By no means…but what is the catch? “…forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (vv. 13b-14).”  We may not be perfect yet, but it doesn’t mean we can’t strive for perfection; in fact, we are called to pursue it!  But that righteousness is not our own; it comes from Jesus Christ.  Forget what is behind, and press on!  Keep Moving Forward!  Live today as if you are preparing for eternity, and if you stumble, pick yourself up and PRESS ON!

Paul concludes the passage in Philippians 3 in a heart-breaking way, saying:

“For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ.  Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.  But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself (vv. 18-21)

There are many desert-dwellers in our world, and what hurts the most is that they are amongst our church family…what may hurt even more is that it may be you.  But listen, if you are in Christ and abiding in Him, your citizenship is not here.  You are occupants of Earth, but citizens of Heaven!  Take encouragement from that!  But as a conclusion, I would like you to ask yourself two things, things that I ask myself often!

1. Am I A Desert Dweller, or a Citizen of Heaven?
2. What am I doing NOW in light of eternity.

Are You For Here?  Or To Go?

Pursue God.  Love All.  Keep Moving Forward.

Always and in All Ways Serving,

Noah