The following devotion is from Pastor Robert Morris. Check out this devotion from the series “first” …
2 Corinthians 5:14 MSG
His love has the first and last word in everything we do.
Picture that perfect moment in your life. That time in your life so wonderful you wouldn’t change a single thing about it. A time when you said, “It doesn’t get any better than this!” Maybe it was your wedding day. Or it might have been after you received the job promotion you were fasting and praying about. It could have been a time when you were hanging out with close friends and having fun. Or maybe it was simply a quiet evening spent at home with your family and loved ones.
No matter how wonderful that moment was, it doesn’t even begin to compare to what God has in store for us. The final book of the Bible gives us a tiny peek into what He has planned: “Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making His home with men and women! They’re His people, He’s their God. He’ll wipe every tear from their eyes. Death is gone for good — tears gone, crying gone, pain gone — all the first order of things gone. … Look! I’m making everything new” (Revelation 21:3–5, msg). Think about it: no more tears, no more fear, no more pain or suffering. Everything brand new. How amazing is that!
Your life on earth is just preparation for greater things to come. It’s only the mere prologue to an incredible story that will continue for eternity. In his book, The Last Battle, C.S. Lewis paints a beautiful picture that wonderfully illustrates this. The scene takes place in the final chapter, “Farewell to Shadowlands,” where the lion Aslan (who symbolizes Christ) is reassuring his beloved friends that he will never send them away again:
“Have you not guessed? The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.” As [Aslan] spoke … things began to happen that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. For them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world had only been the cover and title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.
Once you catch a true glimpse of what God has waiting for you, your life will never be the same again. Because how much you have — money, cars, houses — doesn’t matter in God’s greater scheme of things. What really matters is how you live, how you spend each and every day — from the moment you’re born until the moment you die. What matters is whether you love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and whether you love others as yourself. Are you letting His love have “the fi rst and last word in everything” you do?
We need to stop living with a temporal perspective — that this present world is all there is — and begin living with an eternal perspective. David said, “Show me, O Lord, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before You. Each man’s life is but a breath” (Psalm 39:4–5, NIV).
In the end, all that matters is whether or not you put God first. Because just as everything begins with God, so everything ends with Him. Just as there was no time before Him, there is no time after Him. In the last chapter of the Bible, He says, “I am the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last” (Revelation 22:13). God has always been and will always be. Ultimately, whatever you choose to do for your glory will fade away like a vapor; only the things you do for God’s glory will endure. Colossians 3:1–4 (NLT) says, “Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven …. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all His glory.”
Are you putting God first in every area of your life, every single day? Are you living your life in light of eternity?
What you do in life, echoes in eternity. ~ Gladiator
Hebrews 3:14 NLT
For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ.
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