The Conveyer Belt of Time

 
The conveyor belt of time is moving. We're all on it. It slows for no one. It's either moving you away from the glory days and the good (ol') days, or it's moving you toward The Glory Days and the best is yet to come.

Trying to make heaven on earth is a futile business. You will drive yourself into the ground in disappointment. You will resent the sand-through-your-fingers slipperiness of the tastes and glimpses you do obtain (but can't retain). And you will keep buying the lie that your ultimate happiness is just around the next consumer or relational (or whatever) corner.

There is so much good in this life, but it is never going to fully satisfy you, and it most certainly never lasts forever. But fullness and forever satisfaction is what we long for, and we know so much discontent and dissatisfaction and frustration and emptiness because we keep falling short of it. But that is not a bad thing. In fact, it's an intentional thing. A divinely intentional thing. We long for fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore because we were made by God, for God. Only in him is that quality and quantity of joy ever really found.

Psalm 16:11

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Hebrews 10:34

For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.

A place at the right hand of God is only obtained as a gracious gift, by faith in the Savior Son of God who sits now at his Father's right hand. The better and lasting possession is only inherited by the children of God, adopted by the grace of God, purchased on the cross by the Son of God. Fullness of joy and pleasures forever only come through Jesus; it's only found in Jesus.

John 6:35

Jesus said ... "I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.

Revelation 7:15-17

Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

The conveyor belt is moving. For those who stop trying to make heaven on earth, counting all things as loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Jesus, each day on the conveyor belt is lived with their Treasure, moving closer to their Treasure.

Their lives echo Paul's from Philippians 1:21 & 3:7-8

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. ... [because] whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ

Their lips echo Asaph in Psalm 73:23-28

...I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For behold, those who are far from you shall perish; you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you. But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may tell of all your works.

God is at the end of the conveyor belt for every person. He will be there -- as glorious Treasure or awful Judge. You can travel the conveyor alone, trying to fight its indomitable control, and will you arrive alone at the foot of the Treasure you've "said" is not worth your time. Or, you can travel the conveyor with Jesus, glad for his indomitable control over your present and your future, and you arrive with him to enjoy fullness of joy, forever, in God's immediate presence.

You can't make heaven on earth. But when you know God through Jesus Christ, it's heaven on earth (John 17:3), until heaven comes to earth (Revelation 21:1-7).