And he answered, “YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.” – Luke 10:27
If we were to empty the Pacific Ocean, we’d be left with a hole that’s beyond imagination. If we filled that hole with sand and make a pile as high as Mount Everest, we’d have a fairly sizable sand pile! Now, if we had a bird that took one grain of sand from that pile every 100 billion years, how long would it take the bird to finish? Such a number seems beyond our grasp. Whatever that number is, when the bird finishes the last grain of sand, you will have been in eternity your first second.
How do Christians prepare for eternity? One of the problems that each believer faces is how difficult it is to conceptualize eternity—to see it for what it truly is. They attempt to measure it in light of the passage of time on earth which, if you think about it, is a poor measuring stick. We can’t even fully grasp it, so knowing how to prepare for it seems impossible.
But the good news is that you don’t need to fully understand forever in order to prepare for a life in it. All Christ commanded each of us to do is to love God with all our heart, soul and mind, and love others as ourselves. Granted, there are some details for how that is achieved, but the point is that all the instructions we need for eternal preparation have already been given. All we need to do is devote our lives to following the instruction manual.
