Chosen Reflections: Is Life Temporary or Eternal?

They say it’s a cop-out. Avoiding responsibility and evading the hard questions.

Is this what you’re told when you share the reality that this world is not our home? Or maybe it’s what you think when a follower of Christ tells you that even though your loved one wasn’t healed of their illness in this life, they’re in a better place. Heartless cop-out or tender truth?

The Chosen, a multi-season television series, addressed the reality of our temporary, broken world in the first episode of the second season. This quote resonated with me long after I heard it. The actor portraying Jesus said, “In this world, bones will still break; hearts will still break. But in the end, the light will overcome the darkness.”

While this is not a direct quote from the Bible, the concept is true. We are in a period of “already and not yet.” The resurrection of Jesus Christ has already conquered sin and death, but we won’t fully step into that permanent victory until He returns or takes us home to heaven.

The war has been won but battles are still being fought. Bones and hearts are both still breaking. Someday this will change. Sin and temptation will be eradicated. Illness and death will be destroyed. This is truth, not a cop-out. We have the promise of God’s Word:

• 2 Cor. 4:17 – “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory.”
• 2 Cor. 4:18 – “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
• 2 Cor. 5:1 – “Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.”
• 1 Peter 5:10 – “And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.”

Whatever you’re facing today is not permanent. There is a greater reality than what we can see. Our life is temporary but an eternal world is waiting for us.

So should we be focusing on the temporary or eternal? Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., is said to have observed, “Some people are so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly good.” Waiting for heaven is not an excuse to disengage from our present world. Yes, we’re to focus on heavenly things, but as long as we’re on earth, God has us here for a purpose.

Share the hope we have in Christ. Share it willingly and generously. Share it as long as you have breath. And be encouraged as you remember this is not our best life ever. This is merely a shadow of the best that’s yet to come.