If we as Christians live with this attitude of wanting the “best of both worlds” here on this earth, I believe we will have great regrets looking back at our lives from eternity, and we would scarcely be able to have a massive impact on the building of God’s kingdom here on earth. Overzealousness is a good trait in any work; it very easily sets us apart, coupled with a particular discipline. If we look at people like Moses, David, Peter, or Paul, even before God would pick them out and use them for His glory. These men were marked with a certain overzealousness that made them stand out from those around them. Men who, despite being still in the world, kept their existence on earth at an arm’s distance. Men who walked as sojourners in this world, as Jacob would identify himself before Pharaoh (Genesis 47:9). Men who held frailly to this world’s comfort and pleasures. Men who weren’t merely drifting with the gentle ebb and flow of life but were reaching forward, redeeming time. Men who had all caught a glimpse of the One waiting for them in eternity. Their fuel wasn’t the praises of men, the ambitions they cannot claim as their own, their desires only for the God for whom their hearts were sold out to, their labor wasn’t drudgery, their complaints none, their work excellent, their toils hidden well from this world. As such, these men were, they went on to become defining points in their generations. When our hands are full, our hearts are content, and our minds engrossed with this world, undoubtedly, we are not groaning within ourselves for more. There is no sense of urgency, no cry that rises for His return, no sigh for redemption, no fervent prayers, no rising excitement in meeting the Lord. Eternity is eclipsed by the fleeting. Eternity belongs to those who have taken hold of it in this life. Eternity is weighed with the measure of our temporal life. “Well done, good and faithful servant” will not be heard by the one who has served only himself in this life. As the lines of this century-old hymn read: “And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, In the light of His glory and grace.” So let us make this our sincere prayer today and let not eternity be merely an afterthought, but today, let it instill a hopeful and effervescent meaning to our fleeting lives.

“Only one life, ’twill soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last” ~ C.T. Studd