Think Beyond the Present

Philippians 3:19-21 Their mind is set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

Isn’t it just the pits when apparently evil people succeed, and those who try to do good not only fail but suffer as a consequence? And when that happens to us the very strong temptation is to become one of them.

American cyclist Lance Armstrong showed tremendous promise during his early career, winning some pretty big races before in 1996, being diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1996. Nevertheless, he recovered and went on to win the prestigious Tour de France seven consecutive times from 1999 to 2005. He was eventually exposed as a drug cheat, stripped of all his titles and banned altogether from professional cycling.

Now, imagine that you’re one of the cyclists riding the gruelling Tour de France year after year, only to be beaten by someone who already was strongly rumoured to be on performance-enhancing drugs. What do you do? Do you stay clean and keep losing or do you start taking the same drugs to be competitive?

Well, that depends on what’s important to you. Armstrong was besotted with short term glory. Writing about people with that sort of mindset, the Apostle Paul said this:

Philippians 3:18-20 Their mind is set on earthly things. But [by contrast] our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

There’s so much more to life than short-term success. Think beyond the present because Jesus died and rose again for you, to give you an eternal glory that we can scarce begin to imagine.

That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.