The Big Choice

~ lotzs

The time we live here on earth is not our full life.   It’s more of a practice, or preparation, or pre-game warmup for what is really our life.  Our real life is the eternal life that comes after this. 

While we are here on earth we need to make a decision about how we want to spend our eternal life, and then start practicing for that life.  We basically have a choice of two options:  1) eternal life close to God’s love (heaven), or 2) eternal life away from God’s love (hell).  

As far as I can tell eternal life away from God’s love (hell) is the default.  If we know that God’s love in heaven exists, but we don’t do anything to try to attain it, or we actively work against it, we will go to hell.  While going to heaven is a grace from God, it looks to me that going there requires us wanting it and preparing for it.  According to Jesus, ‘Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it.  For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.’ (Matthew 7.13-14)

Given this, it seems to me that:

  1. The earth has been created with everything we need to live our time on earth to make this decision.
  2. We must keep in mind that our time on earth is limited.  God gives each of us only so much time to make the decision and to adjust our lives accordingly.  As we don’t know how long we have, and since time goes quickly, there is some urgency related to this.
  3. The earth contains many distractions.  While it contains all the necessities that we require, it also contains many things, both natural and man-made, that distract us from this life’s purpose.  We must consciously move ourselves away from the distractions to show God He is important to us.  
  4. God has allowed Satan and his demons to control the earth to some degree, allowing them to make distractions even more enticing and readily available, and allowing them to influence our thoughts.  Again we must consciously work against this to show God He is important to us. 
  5. We humans have been created in such a way that most of us are attracted to ease, comfort, pleasures, honour, riches, etc.  Most of us seem to be averse to doing those things that are difficult, and/or require sacrifice, suffering, humility, and hard work.  The default for many of us is to do just enough to get by.  This seems to be by design, and I would guess it is so that we have ample opportunity to try to overcome our limitations and weaknesses to show God how important He is to us.

So let’s look a little closer at the 2 options:

  1. Preparing for eternal life in hell – this is pretty easy.  Reject, or just forget about, God and enjoy the pleasures of the world.  Give the eternal question no thought, live for the moment, and think primarily of yourself.  Focus only on being successful here on earth and not in the eternal life.  Live for earthly riches, praise of others, and the passions of your senses.  By doing these things, when you die you will have received your reward here on earth, so you will have nothing stored up for heaven.  You will have, consciously or unconsciously, rejected God, and you will continue this way into your eternal life. 
  2. Preparing for eternal life in heaven – eternal life in heaven is different from life on earth, and seems to require  work as preparation.  The degree to which we reject the distractions of this world and focus on preparing for eternal life in heaven, is the degree we will be ready for that life.  Those who want eternal life in heaven must be, to some extent, successful in this world (we must survive after all), but we must also be successful in rejecting those things in life that are not be required for life in heaven.  We must resist the temptations of the world that distract us from our goal.  We must focus on God and His teachings, and practice being obedient to them.  We must use the strengths and weaknesses that God has given us to live in this world to prepare for the eternal life.  We must strengthen ourselves and practice the thankfulness, love and worship of God that I think will be a significant part of our eternal life in heaven.  This balancing act of what we should use temporarily on earth and what we need to do to prepare ourselves for eternity in heaven is very difficult (at least it is for me).  It requires constant focus, effort, and patience.   

Now someone might read this and think that choice number 1 is all about leisure and fun, and choice number 2 is all about working hard and being miserable.  I would disagree with that.  First, ask anyone who is very successful on earth if their success has given them happiness deep to their core.  I think most will say it has not.  Second, if you are working toward your ultimate goal (i.e. the eternal life you want), and that goal means more to you than anything else, wouldn’t you be more likely to feel joyful if you are making progress toward that goal?  Fun isn’t really that fun when it is superficial, and work isn’t really that hard to take when it moves you to your goal.

Peace be with you.

Steve.