The Eternal Value of the Present Moment
To understand the true value of time, it is necessary to perceive how small our time is on earth compared to the grandness of eternity. “Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away” (James 4:14).
One’s mortal life span can be deceiving. We evaluate our lives and are tricked into believing that we have an immeasurable amount of time to accomplish what we wish. But the truth of the matter is, in light of the timelessness of eternity, our mortal existence is but a blink of an eye. Comprehending that life is but a moment is the first step of valuing the time God has given us.
The decisions that you make during this brief stay on earth will affect the outcome of your eternal destiny. Thus, eternity is actually in our midst. Every action has an eternal consequence. Every word you say, every step you take, every moment you breathe will result in either an eternal reward or an eternal punishment.
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. ~ 2 Corinthians 5:10
Thanks to the forgiveness bought for us by the blood of our Savior, we have grace in the light of even our darkest iniquity. If we humbly come before Him and repent from our heart, He will forgive us our every wrong (1 John 1:9). But in all this, it is key to understand that we are held accountable for every second wasted on meaningless pleasures.
The thought that terrifies me the most is that I might approach the end of my life and look back with regret at the time I have exhausted. To stand before the judgement seat of Christ and know in my heart that my destiny was not fulfilled because I squandered hours each day would be devastating.
Living in the Now
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. ~ James 4:13, 14
My reason for dwelling on every deed’s eternal consequence is not to cause shame concerning the sins of your past. Nor is it my desire to incite fear about being perfect every moment of your future existence. My goal is to have you concentrate on the weight of your life in the present.
So often Christians are bogged down by the sins of their past. They go about day by day feeling unworthy and ashamed of what they did the day before. While on the other hand, some are distracted by the victories of their past accomplishments and derive purpose from the achievements of long ago.
Then we have the people who spend the majority of their time thinking about what their future will look like. They plan, worry, and waste precious time thinking about the things to come. Jesus warns us, “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:34).
I am not suggesting to never look at our past, for in doing so we are able to consider our shortcomings and learn from them to produce future fruit. It is also valuable to plan out the future direction in which God is calling you, so you avoid squandering hours on pursuing activity unrelated to your destiny.
But in both instances, we must be on guard to avoid dwelling so much in the past or future that we lose our present moment of existence. To focus our energy on doing all that we can for the Lord in this very moment is one of the most valuable disciplines we can learn.
Our present existence is the only time that is real. The past is lost, the future is not guaranteed, but living in the present will be the only way to truly make a difference in this life. Every moment is the best moment to release the love of God and begin our journey to change the course of history. So I urge you, do not waste these precious seconds that God has so graciously provided, right here, right now!
Living Without Remorse
To be saved at a young age is a fantastic blessing. Those granted this gift have been able to spend the majority of their life in relationship with the Lord. For those who have found God later in life, they may feel regret for the many years of rebellion against God.
At times I have been tempted to believe that I have somehow missed out because I have not experienced some of the pleasures of this world. This is foolishness. These temporal pleasures do not stand the test of time and only end in pain and regret.
In the following paragraph you will read a story told by John Piper that has really touched my heart concerning this matter. As you read, I ask that you would try to identify with the old man. Feel his sorrow, regret, and pain for spending the majority of his life chasing foolishness. My prayer is that this story would be a safeguard for you to remember how precious each moment is and how blessed we are to know God at this stage of our life.
For me as a boy, one of the most gripping illustrations my fiery father used was the story of a man converted in old age. The church had prayed for this man for decades. He was hard and resistant. But this time, for some reason, he showed up when my father was preaching. At the end of the service, during a hymn, to everyone’s amazement he came and took my father’s hand. They sat down together on the front pew of the church as the people were dismissed. God opened his heart to the Gospel of Christ, and he was saved from his sins and given eternal life. But that did not stop him from sobbing and saying, as the tears ran down his wrinkled face—and what an impact it made on me to hear my father say this through his own tears—“I’ve wasted it! I’ve wasted it!”
This was the story that gripped me more than all the stories of young people who died in car wrecks before they were converted—the story of an old man weeping that he had wasted his life. In those early years God awakened in me a fear and a passion not to waste my life. The thought of coming to my old age and saying through tears, “I’ve wasted it! I’ve wasted it!” was a fearful and horrible thought to me.[1]
The notion that we would be able to live a life without regret is a bit outlandish. In our fallen state we are liable to make plenty of mistakes along the way. These regrets, though unavoidable, are controllable to a degree.
The Rocking Chair Exercise
To best illustrate this, I would like to lead you through a brief exercise. Begin by focusing on the end of your life. Now none of us know when that will be or exactly how that will look, but for the sake of example, imagine yourself late into your years, reclining in a rocking chair on the front porch.
As you sway back and forth, thinking back on your life, what do you suppose you will regret? Will it be the super bowl party you couldn’t attend that one year? Or maybe it is the sitcom that you missed on Wednesday night because you were begrudgingly attending a Bible study? Or perhaps you will regret not spending enough time at work, not checking up enough on Facebook, or not taking enough vacations?
No, we are not going to regret the temporal, fleshly pleasures that we missed out on. Instead it will be the plethora of hours wasted and squandered which will bring about remorse. I believe great dread will fall on those who look at that time in light of what could have been accomplished for the Kingdom of God. But what are you to do? It is not like you can turn back time and do this life over again.
Well . . . here is the gift! For most of you reading this, you are not at the end of your life. You still have many years to come. There is still hope to change all these potential future regrets. Rejoice! There is still hope. But we must be fervent. We must not compromise and back down. No matter how many mistakes we make, we must pick ourselves back up, or better yet cry out to God to lift us up, and carry on our pursuit toward Christ with reckless abandonment.
The choice still remains to erase years of regret in our future by making changes in how we live our life now. Don't let this precious life slip away from you. Treasure every moment given to you by God and use it for the furtherance of His glory.
[1] John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2007), PDF e-book, 11-12.