How Do I Live Intentionally For Eternity?

WITH every breathe we take there is one less breathe left in us, just as Ravi Zacharias said, “with every sunset there are fewer sunrises ahead.”

FINITENESS.  These are the facts of our days.  And the facts of our days are irrepressibly true.  How are we to, as the psalmist says, number our days, that we might nurture a heart of wisdom?

Just as pertinent a question, at New Year, is how do I live intentionally for eternity?  I’ve called it the acronym for L.I.F.E. for really good reason.  Maybe our abundant life is centred firmly in the practice of living purposely for a day that is very certainly coming; a day that will come like a thief in the night.

Living intentionally for eternity is nothing about consumption.  It’s about consummation.  It’s nothing about worldly extravagance.  It’s about worshipping extravagantly.  It’s nothing about taking, unless it’s about taking the opportunity to give.

If we can give away what we may certainly possess in order to possess that which cannot be owned, we’ve learned to own possessions that money and fame cannot buy.

Such a possession is vouchsafed as the eternal life of our Lord Jesus Christ — a thing that never looks like anything this side of eternity.  The less we covet, the more we possess in the interminable realm.  And that realm is right here, right now, even though we cannot and do not perceive it.

Living intentionally for eternity is the abundant and eternal life that cannot be known.

It cannot be known without blind exploration into the darkness of life; the sheer testimony of faith.

The darker the steps are made, the more light we take with us into the darkness.  These are most certainly steps that will confuse and confound us.  But as we take them with Jesus, assured of his Spirit’s Presence walking with us, we’re given a rested peace; a foretaste of eternity to know we’re okay.  And that’s it: faith.

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Faith will teach us to number our days.  None of us want to die, yet none of us can handle thought of a life marooned on planet earth.  When faith advises us to take the counsel of the finiteness of life, faith gives us purpose with which to live; to not waste an iota of this life, whilst we prepare for the next life.

L.I.F.E. is short for living intentionally for eternity.
Life, the abundant life of eternity.
Life, the eternal life of abundance.

Although we may waste our lives, nothing we ever do here is a waste —
not to God — nothing goes unnoticed and nothing is unimportant.

We’re not on earth forever.  Someday life will end.  What plans are you making?  How are you living your life for beyond life?

Earth time is preparation time.  Yet, earth time is also time we learn about eternal life, through living intentionally for eternity.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.