There is a nugget tucked in the book of Ecclesiastes:
He has made everything beautiful in His time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. (Ecclesiastes 3:11)
Eternity is defined as infinite or unending time; a state to which time has no application.
So God, according to this scripture, has set infinite or unending time in our hearts. Does that hit a chord with you like it does myself? Wow. Our hearts are not set on earthly time that has been standardized by man with minutes and hours and developed over hundreds of years, starting with the sun dial and moving on to clocks and time zones. Our hearts are timeless. Now let’s put this thought together with a few other scriptures and I think it paints a powerful picture of our lives as Christians.
My kingdom is not of this world. (John 18:36)
The kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:20-21)
My words will never pass away (timeless) (Matthew 24:35)
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
Putting the scriptures together, we catch a glimpse of our eternal life in Christ. When we are “born again” our hearts have been reset from man-made time to endless time with Jesus. My next thought then is:
How then should we live?
We now live for Jesus, not for the things of the world. Our hearts are filled with His love and His purpose. The world with its offerings pales in comparison to kingdom living where the standard is not tick-tock time where we run around sometimes purposeless, stressed or frustrated. Our lives are set on a different course uniting us with Jesus and other believers advancing His kingdom His way.
And the best part? Suffering has a time frame. Relationships and jobs and things we acquire have an expiration date. But we never die internally. Only our bodies go back to the earth. But the eternal kingdom within lives on.
Death does not have the last word! Eternal life has the last word.
Joanne
