Live Free with Josh Howerton - The Realities of Heaven | Ep. 354 | Thursday, June 13, 2024

Episode Date: June 13, 2024

Eternal life starts now! Isn’t that amazing? Let’s focus on this because it lasts and is so much more important than the temporary things of this world. Let's get on with the main course of knowing God and avoid wasting our time prioritizing our temporary home. For more information, visit lakepointe.church/dailydrive

Thanks for tuning in to today's Daily Drive with Lake Point Church, a daily dose of God's Word for your morning drive. When the word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. For that reason, our prayer is that God will speak to you through today's devotional. For more digital content to feed your faith, visit lakepoint.comit. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hey, welcome to the Daily Drive. My name is Mike Bro, and grateful to be with you on this pursuit of knowing God. I mean, I hope your summer is off to a great start and that you will have a chance to break the routine of work and school and to-do list at some point along the way.

And I hope that one routine you will keep is tuning in here every weekday because I find it's easy to drift when you don't drop anchor somewhere. So practices like this help keep us grounded, and I promise we'll keep it short every day and hopefully helpful for you every day. of this summer. We've been talking about distractions this week, about rediscovering joy and purpose instead of chasing so many things. We've said this a few times this week. Whatever has your focus has your attention. Whatever has your attention has your devotion. And whatever has your devotion has you. And distractions start that whole progression. So we are looking at a few passages from God's word that can help us be more focused on the right thing, in the right way. So here's our one for today. It comes from an awesome letter in the back of the Bible called Colossians, and the writer Paul was a guy who tried to eliminate all the former distractions in his own life.

And he writes this to us in Colossians chapter 3, since you have been raised in new life with Christ. Set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God's right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth, for you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ and God. God, and when Christ who is your life is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all of his glory. You know, there's a misconception that eternal life is something way out there in the cosmos that we can only hope to attain after we die, and that being saved is merely about meeting the minimal entrance requirements for getting into heaven.

But the truth is, the moment we trust Jesus, we are ushered into eternal living with God as a here and now reality and one that will continue beyond our life here on this earth. Jesus, in fact, defined eternal life this way. In John 17, verse 3, he said, now this is eternal life. That

they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. Let me read that again. Now, this is eternal life. That they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. So as we begin this journey of getting to

know God walking with him each day, experiencing his presence and his love and his power and his goodness right here, right now, in everyday ordinary moments? As we do all of that with God, we are experiencing the eternity that our hearts long for. This is eternal life, that we know the only true God, the one who longs for relationship with us. Like the late Dallas-Willard used to say, eternity is now in session. So Paul is saying, set your focus on that reality. And the word that Paul uses here for set your hearts and set your minds is the Greek word zeteo, which means to search, pursue, be focused, or be single-minded.

And it's written in the present tense, which translates, keep seeking things above. Keep thinking about heaven. Keep setting your heart and your mind there. Set your focus there every day. Live your life knowing that it's real. And when tough things come along, you will know deep in the world. core of your being, that this is really just our temporary home. When we don't set our minds on things above, when we don't set our focus on the eternal, when we fail to grasp God's

promises about the world to come, we get distracted. And chasing all those distractions sets us up for anxiety, stress, and discouragement. And we begin to go after instant gratification at any cost. We'll do anything to get it right now because we start seeing this temporary life as it. I've always loved the words of C.S. Lewis when he wrote, it is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this one. Aim in heaven, and you'll get earth thrown in. Aim at earth, and you'll get neither.

He's saying live with the eternal perspective. Don't live like this is it. Don't buy into cultural pressure that keeps all your focus and all your hopes right here on this earth. Anybody else love movies? anybody else like me, you go to the theater a little early to catch a glimpse of coming attractions, I love movie trailers. They're so cool that guy with a really, really deep voice and lots of action and stuff.

Now, in reality, every now and then, once you see the movie, it wasn't nearly as good as a trailer, right? And you walk away totally disappointed. But not so with God. Not so with God. The good things we love about this life, the things that resonate deep in our soul, those things that fill us with excitement, the things that we love best about this life, guess what? They're just previews of coming attractions. The Apostle Paul writes this in 1 Corinthians 5.

We've been given a glimpse of the real thing, our true home, our resurrection bodies. The Spirit of God wets our appetite by giving us a taste of what's ahead. I love this. He puts a little of heaven in our hearts so that we'll never settle for less. Isn't that good? He puts a little of heaven in our heart so that we'll never settle for less. as good as it can get in this life, and, gang, it can get really, really good sometime. It's still just a preview of coming attractions for what is in store.

The Bible says this hope, this living hope, will not disappoint. It was Augustine who said, the only ultimate disaster that can befall us I have come to realize is to feel ourselves to be at home on this earth. He's just saying it would be tragic to get distracted and settle for the stuff of this earth. to hold tightly to that which is only temporary, because you and I were made for a forever kind of place. Someday, we will be home. But until that day, set your mind on things above. Live in the reality that eternity is now in session and move through your world with joy and grace and purpose making an eternal difference with your brief life here. And I hope you have a

great day doing exactly that. And I'll see you back here tomorrow. Thanks for tuning in today. For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our church online live weekend services on Saturdays at 5 p.m. and Sundays at 9.30 and 11 a.m. Central Standard Time. For more information, visit lakepoint.com. Church slash daily drive.