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By Louis Rushmore

How often do you contemplate and evaluate your spiritual path to eternity? Young mother, where will you be and what will you be doing in a million years from now? What about you, husband and father, where will you be and what will you be doing in a million years from now? Teenager, what about you; have you paused to contemplate and evaluate your spiritual path to eternity? Where will our children be and what will they be doing one million years from now? This is neither an idle nor a silly question for those who realize that one’s physical life on earth is a mere pittance of a few years contrasted with an eternity thereafter. Surely, Bible believers acknowledge that what we do in the here and the now will determine where we will be and what we will be doing in a million years from now.

First, no matter how long one may live, life on earth is comparatively brief. The oldest person who ever lived as far as any record reveals was Methuselah who lived to be 969 years old (Genesis 5:27). Methuselah still died! However, ordinarily in modern times, common lifespans range from 70 to 80 years old (Psalm 90:10). Yet, we know that babies die, too. Some other people live longer than 80 years old, maybe approaching or exceeding 100 years old. Still, all die (Hebrews 9:27). There were two exceptions to dying as a prerequisite to leaving the land of the living; Enoch and Elijah avoided the pains of death (Genesis 5:24; Hebrews 11:5). Furthermore, many souls will avoid death when Jesus returns at the end of time (1 Thessalonians 4:17). Still, after life on earth comes endless eternity.

Second, the eternity that follows life on earth is Vastness with a capital “V” and without end. There are two eternities into one of which each person will enter. It is well known that there are two possible eternities that face every soul – heaven and hell (Matthew 25:46; John 14:1-3; Matthew 18:8-9). There is no third or fourth possible eternity where one might miss heaven but avoid hell (e.g. purgatory, limbo). Each of us needs to ask himself which of the two possible eternities looms in his future according to the way in which he is conducting himself now.

What a person does or doesn’t do in this life determines where he or she will spend eternity. God is willing that all souls be saved (1 Timothy 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9). However, salvation is conditional rather than unconditional – obedience versus disobedience (Hebrews 5:9; 2 Thessalonians 1:8). Hence, now is the time for mortals to prepare to meet God in Final Judgment (Amos 4:12). That preparation involves things we do not do as well as what we must do (James 4:17; Matthew 25:31-46).

You and I are not taking life and eternity seriously enough if we are not evaluating our lives by the Holy Word of God. We owe it to ourselves to evaluate our lives with the light of the Bible (2 Corinthians 13:5). Only then can we have confidence respecting the eternity looming in the future (1 John 3:20-21). We cannot stress too much that every thought, every word uttered, every action, every entertainment choice, one’s choice of companions and spouses, and one’s choice of a vocation to pass biblical inspection if we have any real hope of spending eternity in heaven with God.

Ask yourself right now whether you are making preparation for the forever that follows this life. Please tell me that you are not so shallow as to be thinking only about the life you are living now and how you can enjoy it more. One makes preparation for a million years from now by becoming a Christian if he is not a Christian already (Acts 2:38; 11:26). An unfaithful or erring Christian makes preparation for a million years from now through repentance and prayer (Acts 8:22; 1 John 1:9). Please take care of the undoneness in your life if you are not now prepared for where you will be and what you will be doing in a million years from now.

(Tony Hoss is minister of the Centerview Church of Christ, Elizabethton)