Daily Verse: 1 Timothy 4:8

For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.

We are blessed with the ability to achieve all kinds of success in our world. We can choose to invest years of time obtaining various degrees from hundreds of different universities…and using those degrees to secure lucrative positions of employment. We can choose to spend time combing through pages and pages of market data, uncovering the clues to a key investment and future wealth…achieving a sense of “security” for tomorrow. We can choose to spend hours each day pushing our bodies through tiresome workouts and exercises, finely tuning our system into high performance machines. Devoting time and working hard for today is certainly a worthwhile and necessary thing. After all, God has given us talents and abilities to be successful…to secure beneficial employment, to put a roof over our heads, clothing on our backs, and food on our tables. We aren’t expected to hole up in a room all day, the Bible cracked open, and wait for God to shower down money…that’s silly. But if we examine each day, what percentage of our day is spent on the present life versus the life to come? Are the things we are devoted to today temporary, only benefiting the present life? We might find the answer to this question to be quite humbling and revealing. We might find that we are focusing solely on today and not looking to tomorrow. We might find that we are short-changing a God that has given us everything…a God that has given us every good thing in our present lives (see James 1:17) and the promise of something great in the life to come (see 1 Corinthians 2:9). The text above indicates that pursuing righteousness, holiness, goodness in the present life pays dividends in both the present life AND the life to come. When we pursue Christ, professing our faith in him, we are securing the promise of salvation for the life to come. And when we pursue Christ, we are embracing his teachings and allowing them to spill out into our present life…teachings that include loving one another, forgiving in all circumstances, controlling our tongue, avoiding lust and adultery, refusing greed and jealousy, rejecting hate and rage…all things that would be beneficial to our present lives…all things that will undoubtedly make tomorrow better than today. May we take time to consider what we are investing in today. Are we focused only on the present life and losing sight of the life to come? The present life is temporary, fleeting, brief…the life to come is eternal, unending, everlasting. May we spend more time today in the presence of our Lord, pursuing godliness and building-up BOTH the present and the eternal life. To God be the glory!