Eternity isn’t really everything on the other side of Point B, any more than Salvation is just what I want to have happen when I’m gone. Is eternity a quantity of time? Or, is it a quality of time? If the free gift of God is eternal life: never ending life, always life, ever life, abundant life – I would take this to mean now as well as then, before as well as after, life immediate and ultimate.
What we speak of as a straight line, or the narrow path; what if it’s also a series of “widening rings” as Rainer Maria Rilke describes? “Which spread over earth and sky.” Encircling God and radiating outward into God. From glory to glory. What if it’s a long and winding road from fear to hope? A wandering in the wilderness from the tyranny of self to a new kind of freedom?
Could it be that we are immersed in eternity instead of striving madly to gain on it? That eternal, never ending, always, ever, and abundant have more to do with quality than quantity? Much more. Infinitely more.
Daily Prayers for Moravians Has Moved!
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Please note: The Daily Prayers for Moravians Blog has now moved to
https://www.moravian.org/daily-prayers-for-moravians/. I have now ceased
publishing here...
5 years ago
3 comments:
The new design is refreshing, along with your thoughts of eternal life beginning here and now. What a blessed reminder to enjoy our eternal inheritance which is here right in front of us. Thank you.
And then of course there is the consideration that eternal is always or forever and includes the past as well. I like Lynn's term "eternal inheritance."
Surely when Jesus invites us into eternal life he invites us into what has been as well as what is and what will be.
Remind me to tell you about the image of the soccer field some day.
Time, it would appear, is about the rules and boundaries that God puts upon this game we call life.
Thanks for the perspective! And, I can't wait to hear about the image of the soccer field... In questioning the nature of "Eternity" perhaps I overlook the nature of Time which, you're right - God basically "invents" in Genesis 1:14 "Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years..." Time gives Sabbath meaning. There's a time for every matter under heaven (Eccl 3:1). Jesus is with us 'til the end of time. My wrestling here is with the dual, or "amphibious" nature of being a Christian: Being in the world, but not of it. Having been saved and being saved. A slave of the Gospel but free indeed. Walking by faith and having eyes to see. Thy Kingdom come and the Kingdom at hand. Living within the constraints of Time while abiding in the Eternal Christ.
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