Focus on Forever

Life is fickle.  From day to day, everything changes.  Up and down, the universal constant.  This is as true today as it has been since the Fall.  In science, this is expressed as entropy, or the continual decline and decomposition of everything in all of creation.  Creation is in a constant state of degradation from form to chaos.  Scripture speaks clearly to the principles of entropic declension in creation, speaking most directly to the volatile and capricious nature of humanity.

Peter, in his first epistle, quotes Isaiah in stating, "All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass.  The grass withers, and the flower fails, but the word of the Lord endures forever (Isa. 40:6-8; 1 Pet. 1:24-25)".  The principle is clear.  All flesh is as grass, growing fast and strong only to perish like waste upon seasons change.  Man is here today and passes away tomorrow without any hope for relief from the impending end of deterioration and death.

Solomon wrenches the truth of the flesh's vanity to a fevered pitch of nihilism in Ecclesiastes 1:2b, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."  Think of the bleek picture of humanity Solomon paints with the swift strokes of his keenly wise pen.  Vanity.  Life is but vain in all of its endeavors and pursuits.  Understanding the uselessness of life apart from God is principle in any proper understanding of sin, the Fall, and of God Himself.

Before the Fall (Gen. 3), life had purpose and divine intent, full of communion and relationship with the Lord.  Because of the Fall and the sin thereof, man was made unable to be in the presence of God.  Thus we lost are ties to the everlasting and we were relegated to the perishing.  Thus all pursuits of righteousness are worthless in light of the righteousness of God (Isa. 64:6).  As a result, we need Christ.  

We need the cleansing atonement of Christ's grace applied to our lives by faith.  This is where all of the worth of life comes from.  Flesh is perishing, but God is infinite and eternal.  Our focus is to be on the eternal and not on the perishing.  This is a major tenet of the Christian life.  Christ is our tie to the eternal, our only tie.  

Apart from Jesus, there is no intermediary between the decomposition of man and the eternal  character of God.  He is the connecting conduit which transforms the perishing into the eternal.  When we give ourselves to Him, His grace is applied to our lives through faith and we gain access to the eternality of the Heavenly Lord.  This is a beautiful thing.  Oh, that we would always focus on forever, which is only achieved by an ardent faith in Jesus.  Only in Christ and through Him can we who are of flesh know anything of the Spirit, which is eternal.