Purpose Driven Life: Day 6

LIFE IS A TEMPORARY ASSIGNMENT




POINT TO PONDER:

This world is not my home.


VERSE TO REMEMBER:

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Cor. 4:18 (NIV))


RICK WARREN'S THOUGHTS:

To make the best use of your life, you must never forget two truths:

* First, compared with eternity, life is extremely brief;

* Second, earth is only a temporary residence.

Your identity is in eternity and your homeland is heaven. When you grasp this truth, you will stop worrying about "having it all" on earth. God is very blunt about the danger of living for the here and now and adopting the values, priorities, and lifestyles of the world around us.

Realizing that life on earth is just a temporary assignment should radically alter your values. Eternal values, not temporal ones, should become the deciding factors for your decisions.


D-MONK'S THOUGHTS:

Again, Warren has put his finger on the cause of much frustration in our world. We tend to live each day as if our own pleasures are the purpose for our lives. Yet such lifestyles often lead to frustration. Why?

Does self-seeking lead to frustration only for those who aren't good at it, or does self-seeking lead to frustration because we were designed and created for something else? As a believer, I tend to think the latter is true.

We weren't designed for self-seeking. We were designed to bring glory to God while on earth and to be re-united with God in eternity. In this sense, life IS just a temporary assignment.

But I caution against too much emphasis on the life as a test thinking. I don't think the fact that life is a temporary assignment is the same thing as saying life is a test. If life is a test, we are all in trouble because we spend most of it living as self-seekers. But life as a temporary assignment may mean that life is a field of learning. We have been created and placed in time to experience things that we could not as eternal beings. We are here to discover the pain and depth of separation from the source of life so that we can truly enjoy the fullness of communion with our Creator as we move to eternity.

Life is a temporary assignment. Take advantage of that and learn to love God here and now!