“Here & Now” should always consider Eternity!

If any of us are parents, we have lived this scenario: Your 16-year-old teenager comes home with a shattered heart because their sweetheart broke up with them. You hear the child proclaim:  “Woooooooooe is me! I will never love again!” You smile, because                                                 you have "been there, done that!"  

You, having lived through this, give comfort. Hopefully, you don’t say, “You will get over it!” (Not if you are a wise parent, because you remember how much you hated hearing that when you were that age and went through the same thing!)

Still, you know that “NOW” is not the whole story!

Probing Proverbs 15:7-8 The lips of the wise give good advice; the heart of a fool has none to give. The LORD detests the sacrifice of the wicked, but he delights in the prayers of the upright.

God is concerned with “substance” not “appearance”. True wisdom gives advice based on “learned experience” with an eternal perspective in mind. The “fool” does not believe in God, so the advice is based on a temporal basis, i.e. “here & now”. The sacrifice that a “wicked” person would bring is based on selfish motives, “what’s in it for me?” Those that love God and are concerned with His reputation, God counts even their prayers precious.

Remember, “wicked” is describing behavior. All of us, including me, are sinners…I believe I have a PHD in sin!

The “Here & Now” mindset and lifestyle is not reality! Too be sure, dealing with the present is essential, however, understanding how the present impacts our eternity is the “BIGGER” picture.

Wisdom will weigh the “here & now” considering how important is it when compared to eternity. The fool will only be concerned about now, either ignoring or denying the accountability that God will hold us all to. The advice of a godly person is “good”, meaning it will be valuable, the fool’s advice can be dangerous due to the lack of seeing the whole picture. Not just now, but a billion years from now!

Offerings to God motivated by selfish desires, only desiring to please yourself, are sickening to God.

James 4:3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.

Contrary to what Satan tries to twist, God loves to see humans enjoy pleasure…He is the One Who invented it! Smell, taste, hearing, seeing, even in reproduction! God could have made it so that we touch fingers and pregnancy would happen! He did not, so pleasure is not evil. Pleasure morphs into evil when it possesses you, instead of God possessing you and sharing His pleasure with you.

The So What: In your journey of life, is your priority to seek spiritual experience or sensual experience? Do you believe spiritual experience includes sensual? Consider intimacy with the opposite sex: does it involve: spirit, intellect, emotion, and physical, or just physical? If it is the latter, the other person is nothing more than an object to you.