As the mother’s womb holds us for nine months, making us ready, not for the womb itself, but for life, just so, through our lives, we are making ourselves ready for another birth…. Therefore, look forward without fear to that appointed hour—the last hour of the body, but not of the soul…. That day, which you fear as being the end of all things, is the birthday of your eternity.
~Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 b.c.-a.d. 65)
He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
~ Ecclesiastes 3:11
But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies….
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 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.
~ from 2 Corinthians 4
Oh beloved, it is true. We are but a few breaths from a moment where all of our choices will have set a course that will last forever. Because upon breathing our last, we will be beyond the grasp of time, and time’s reactant: change.
We are already in eternity, but we do not yet inhabit that place where change fades and clocks lose their relevance. And so it is now that we have the opportunity to get done what needs to be done.
Said simply: We are in a dreadful hurry to get things right.
A place where words like “forever” fall short, yawns ahead of us beloved. All of time is simply not able to contain or measure eternity. Time is but a construct, a subset, that has been put into place by the Wellspring of existence to act as some sort of linear scaffold upon which events can be hung and given context.
However, in eternity, there is no next (at least as we understand it now). There will be growth , but it seems this growth will be an expansion and enhancement of an already complete and perfect picture. Change, as we understand it now, also involves the risk of failure and entropy and destruction. Eternity knows no such exposure to chance.
To miss the mark upon making entry into this limitless space will be miss of unfathomable loss. To cross the point of no return with no purpose, no hope, and no Savior is simply not something any one of us can describe. Even those who have entered that place, have only begun to understand the horror of being separated from the Author and Finisher of all things.
And for all the fear a destiny apart from Him can and should evoke, the above is very good news. For the very wide road to destruction also clearly defines the narrow way which leads to Him. Actually, eternity apart from Him is easy to aim at… Simply aim at anything other than Jesus and you will hit it.
However, can we see it? All we have to do is look to The Light in the darkness, and He is impossible to miss. That One single Point will guide us home. For the light we see is the Light of the World. The Light is the Way. The Light is The Truth. The Light is Life.
All the way through the Word, beloved, we are admonished to rest from trying, and look to the One who:
Can save us
Has saved us
Wants to save us
Delights to save us
Loves to save us
Mightily saves us
Continually saves us
Will save us.
But to do this, we have to actually do something. We have to stop aiming at anything else. We have to stop trying to find our own way to save ourselves. For the One who would save us, does indeed Love us enough to let us reject Him and His saving power. For the purity and strength of His Love is not sullied by coercion or force or threat. It is the kind of Love, though, that will not stand any rivals or modifications.
Said simply again: Jesus is the only Way. Every other way misses the mark.
Tonight is the night beloved. Look to Him. Look away from the broad path to destruction and Live in His Light tonight, that you might Live in Him forever.
