If only for this life
By Marilyn Anderes

Recently, I attended a conference where Joni Eareckson Tada was a plenary speaker. Due to a diving accident over three decades ago, Joni has been confined to a wheelchair as a quadriplegic. She said: “My paralysis is merely part of the journey toward intimacy with God. He allows what he hates [in order] to accomplish what he loves.” Clearly, Joni’s perspective is an eternal one, unchained from the temporary, self-consumed, hurried and driven “now” that most of us live in.

The Bible is full of phrases that remind us to be eternal thinkers. 1 Peter 2:11 calls us “aliens and strangers in the world.” Colossians 3:1-2 exhorts us to set our hearts and minds “on things above.” 1 Timothy 6:12 tells us to “take hold of the eternal life to which (we) were called.” In 2 Corinthians 5:7 we are reminded that “we live by faith not by sight.”

This is resurrection theology. In 1 Corinthians 15:19 Paul says: “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.” Perhaps what has rendered the church impotent in postmodern times is the fact that some have hoped in Christ for this life only. C.S. Lewis noticed, “It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.”

In sharing my fascination with 1 Corinthians 15:19, a respected friend reminded me that while it’s good to have an eternal perspective, we dare not be so heavenly minded that we’re no earthly good. I have pondered that statement and have concluded that if we’re not heavenly minded it’s certain we will be no earthly good. A proper balance is recorded in the following 17th century Puritan prayer: “Teach me the happy art of attending to things temporal with a mind intent on things eternal.”

Psalm 90 records a prayer of Moses that states how temporary we are. In verse ten he asserts: “The length of our days is seventy years—or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.” He continues by exhorting us to “number our days that we may present to Him a heart of wisdom” (Ps. 90:12 NASV).

Moses didn’t mean for us to literally count our days. He was encouraging us to make our days count. When folks ask: “Is this all?” they’re recognizing that there is more than just calendar tallies. So, how can we be eternal thinkers?

When what we do for God is more the focus than what he does through us, we have slipped into hoping in Christ only for this life. When we major on the longings of our own hearts and our own reputation more than the longings of his heart and his reputation, it is only for this life that we hope in him. When the Christian life is reduced to getting from the Father’s hand rather than seeking the Father’s face, we are to be pitied. When information takes precedence over transformation—teaching over a touch from him—we are those who hope in Christ only in this life.

A good example of one who hoped in Christ in and beyond this life was my friend, Cheryl Stephens. She was the young mother I wrote of last year, struggling with cancer, determined to continue ministering to others. She went home to Jesus on November 19, 2003 at age 44, and she lived the verse in Philippians 1:21 that says, “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

The following is a poem Cheryl wrote in 1984, long before her bout with cancer.    

“Remember me not for who I was
But for who Jesus was in me.
Remember me not for the things I’ve done
But for the things Jesus did through me.
Remember me not as one who loved
Without remembering that ‘He first loved me.’
Remember me not as one who gave
But one to whom much was given.
Remember me not as one who spoke of God
But as one who knew God through His Son, Jesus.
Remember me not as one who prayed
But remember the One to whom I prayed.
Remember me not as one who was strong
But as one who cried out to God to be my strength.
Remember me not as one who died
But as one who lives forever because I have believed.
Remember not my life and death
For they will profit you nothing.
But please… please remember the life and death of Jesus.
For He gave His life that we might live.
He died that we might never have to and He rose again
That we might have eternal life.
Remember not me, but do remember Jesus.”

You see the resurrection is not just a theological consideration. We are to live it! If the church is to be all that God intended, we will need to be eternal thinkers hoping in Christ for this life and the next. In Ecclesiastes 3:11 we are told that “He has set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” This resurrection season let us not forget that he is “the Beginning and the End” (Revelation 21:6).

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