~ What Plans Are You Making For ETERNITY? ~
We live in an age where great emphasis is placed on making plans for the future. Many people work for a company that provides retirement benefits so that they will be able to retire and still receive an income. Most people who have reached an adult age have been approached at one time or another by someone who sells life insurance, and many people have life insurance. Also, many of us have fire insurance on our homes and possessions, hospital insurance, cancer insurance, and even a burial policy. We put great emphasis upon the preparation that needs to be made to take care of our future and for the years ahead.
Why have a retirement plan or life insurance? The answer, of course, is to provide for the food, clothing, and housing our bodies will need as long as we live. But when I think of such things, I am mindful of the fact that these provisions place emphasis on the material and not the spiritual. Of course, there is nothing wrong with providing for our material needs in the future, but the point I want to make is that the majority of emphasis is on the physical, with little or none on the spiritual. A person will make all kinds of sacrifices to have a retirement and the proper insurance so he and his family will be taken care of physically, yet to forget about the spiritual needs will result in him and his family missing out on heaven. Friends, that just doesn’t make sense. Jesus asked, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mark 8:36-37).
We would say that a person is foolish if he does not prepare for his futurephysical needs. What would we say about the individual who does not prepare for his future spiritual needs? It goes without saying that spiritual preparation is far more important than physical. Eternity is everlasting. In John 14:1-15, Jesus tells us that heaven is a place that has been prepared for those who have prepared themselves to go there. “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know...I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me...If ye love me, keep my commandments.” (see also Ephesians 6:10-18). Preparing for eternity isn’t difficult. The supreme tragedy is to FAIL to prepare.