Choosing the Eventual Over the Immediate – Part 2

19 Sep Choosing the Eventual Over the Immediate – Part 2

Blog Series

Moving from Checkers to Chess

Five Steps to Unleashing the Power of an Eternal Perspective

God rewards us disproportionately in heaven

Some years ago, a friend of mine asked his pre-teen son, hypothetically, if he would rather receive hundred dollars a day for a month, or receive a penny on the first day of the month, and then have that amount doubled every day for 30 days. For example, he would receive one penny the first day, two pennies the second day, four pennies the third day and so on… each day doubling the amount of the day before for 30 days.

His son jumped at $100 a day for a month, an inconceivable amount of money.

His father then explained to his son that, with his chosen amount of $100 a day, at the end of 30 days he would have received $3000. A very impressive amount of money!

However, if he had taken the offer of a penny a day for the first day, and had that amount double every day for 30 days, he would have received $5,368,709.12!  A truly inconceivable amount of money! At that age, our brains simply aren’t able to grasp reality.

We jump at lesser options because we can’t comprehend greater ones.

The same thing is true with us spiritually. We jump at lesser options that we can comprehend because we cannot comprehend greater options.

The world offers us $100 a day (modest happiness based on temporal things) – initially appealing, but ultimately poverty.  Jesus offers us a penny the first day, doubling the amount every day for 30 days (joy and purpose based on eternal things) – initially less appealing, but ultimately infinite riches.

This is the point that C.S. Lewis made in The Weight of Glory, when he said: “If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion… is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by an offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased” (p. 26).

We often take the temporal $100 a day, trying to wring what happiness we can out of this world, because our minds can’t imagine the value of the eternal “pennies.”

God’s rewards are disproportionate – in our favor! Romans 8:18 says, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

We must begin with the end in mind

One of the gates in the ancient wall around old Jerusalem is called the Damascus gate. If you go out that gate, the road leads you to Damascus. There’s another gate that’s called the Joppa gate. If you go out that gate, the road leads you to Joppa.  If you want to go to Joppa, you don’t go out the Damascus gate. It won’t take you there.

This is a metaphor, making the point that our current actions must lead to our ultimate goals. If they don’t, we must either change our actions or change our goals.

For example, we cannot live beyond our means when we are young and hope to retire in financial comfort when we are old. We must either change our goal of retiring in financial comfort or change our actions of living beyond our means now.

And, to the same point, we cannot hope for compounded eternal reward while choosing today to live for temporal things.

Conclusion

One day, a monk came to Mother Teresa complaining that he was being given too many administrative duties, and that those duties were keeping him from serving the lepers, the cause for which he had joined that monastic order.

He said, “They are keeping me from working for the lepers! My job is to work for the lepers!”

Mother Teresa replied quietly, “Brother, your job is not to work for the lepers. Your job is to belong to Jesus.”

We may want to do great things… to serve the lepers… but in the serving of the lepers, there may be times when we simply have to be faithful to administrative duties. We need to redefine what it means to serve God.

In the pursuit of the ministries that God gives us, we may have to do things that we are not good at, things that we don’t like, things that are painful. But they are all things that must be done.

If those tedious, unpleasant, and frustrating things are what God has given us to do that day, then we serve Him by being faithful to those duties. And in doing so, we are pleasing to God and are rewarded for eternity.

Scripture says:

“Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary” (Galatians 6:9).

“Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:58).

“Father, I have glorified you by completing the work you gave me to do” (John 17:4).

Just as Jesus glorified God by completing the work His Father gave Him to do, so we glorify God by completing the work He has given us to do. So, even if it is tedious, or unsatisfying, or painful, He’s pleased with us. And He rewards us disproportionately.

To summarize Step 3 to Unleashing the Power of an Eternal Perspective: We Must Choose the (seemingly) Undesirable: God over personal happiness; Others over self; and The Eventual over the immediate. It won’t always be easy, but an eternal perspective can give us hope during the trials of life. In the end, all will be well!

Next week we’ll begin our look at Step 4 to Unleashing the Power of an Eternal Perspective: You Must Fight the Invisible. I look forward to seeing you then.

Get a Moving from Checkers to Chess At-a-Glance-Overview: Click Here

As we have been studying these concepts for quite some time (including in some prior blog series), and I am excited to now be connecting all the “moving parts” from those posts and combining them into a “spiritual game plan” in this “Moving from Checkers to Chess ~ 5 Steps to Unleashing the Power of an Eternal Perspective” series.

For an overview of the game plan, so you can see at a glance where we begin and where we’re headed, I’ve created an overview/outline you can download for free: Click Here

For the full discussion of each of the steps, begin with the first post in this series, Moving from Checkers to Chess, and then continue with the following posts thereafter.

In case you’re new here, below are two resources I’ve created for additional help in your Christian discipleship journey:

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