Finally, here it is……..the post you have all been waiting for.
What is the secret of life?
James Taylor says that it is: “enjoying the passage of time”.
I’m a big fan of his…….and he is close……. but, Sorry James……”No Cigar!”
The great secret of life is that it’s eternal.
If you think about it, there are two possibilities. When we die, either the lights just go out………or we transition to something else. I believe that the great truths are written on our hearts. We are born with them. Our creator put them there to help us along. Love, hope, an understanding of beauty, an understanding of right and wrong, an odd sense that we are incomplete, and the sense that there is something after death.
According to a recent Roper poll, 80% of people believe in an afterlife.
You can call this wishful thinking, but can you think of anything else that 80% of people agree on?
Faced with eternal life, the brief 70 years that we spend on earth is the blink of an eye……it is nearly inconsequential. And yet we spend 99% of our time and effort managing this temporal life…….and less than 1% of our time managing our eternity. We tend to ignore eternity because we don’t like to think about death. We also ignore eternity because we believe that we have no knowledge of it and we believe that we have no control over it. Both of these things are untrue.
If you ask 100 people to describe eternity…… paradise, you will get just about the same thing from every one of them……. a field of grass with happy people enjoying nice weather…….familiar faces, lots of smiles. You get the same image from everyone you ask because this knowledge is written on all of our hearts…..put there by our creator. In a way, it is a beacon calling us home. So……..if you search your heart, you already know what paradise is like. But now……I ask you to look deeper. In your vision of paradise, everybody is happy……. everybody is nice. Where is all of the bad stuff? We don’t seem to have a hardwired vision of hell……but the absence of bad things in our vision of paradise suggests that the bad stuff must be somewhere else. It is a fair assumption that that place is bad……. probably very bad. In the Roper survey, 67% of people believe in hell. Frankly, I’m surprised that the number is that high.
We will spend essentially our entire existence in eternity. We will spend essentially our entire existence in a place that is either very nice or in a place that is very bad. We will spend essentially our entire existence in either paradise or hell.
Going back to the hardwiring in our hearts, nobody seems to believe that we can go back and forth between paradise and hell. If that were true, then the bad stuff would creep into paradise. When we die…….we go either to paradise…….or hell……. forever. The choice between paradise and hell is not random. God does not just toss a coin. The choice between paradise and hell hinges on how we handle our brief life in this temporal world.
Time for some honest reflection.
Think back over the last week……maybe two weeks if you are a saint. Call to mind something that you did, or said, or thought that was rotten. Do you see people doing that in your vision of paradise? Probably not. If you are honest, you are left with the nagging doubt that maybe you don’t belong in paradise.
So……what determines who goes to paradise……..what determines who goes to hell? There are two schools of thought.
I’m a good person.
I do some rotten things…….but not too many. I’m “good enough”. I’ve earned a place in paradise. In this school of thought, I usually damn the guy just a bit below me on the goodness scale to hell. After all, I don’t want him taking my parking spot. This is the most common belief among the people you meet.
I’m a broken person.
I have made mistakes…..done rotten things……..but my creator loves me. He has decided to let my rottenness slide. This is what God teaches in his instruction book. There is just one tiny catch……..you have to recognize God and accept his “get out of jail free card”.
So……..the secret of life?
It is eternal and you get to choose where you will spend it……..today.
What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
James, NIV
“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
“The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’
“But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’
“He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’
“Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’
“‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’
“He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
Jesus, NIV