The step from this world to the next is a transition from a place of limitation to a place of excessive freedom. It is from a place where weariness and pain are part and parcel of people’s lives to a place where such things are unknown.

The transition can be sudden or drawn out: In the context of eternity any amount of time is trivial though it may not seem so at the time.

If I draw a line representing my life to date and what is left to come, it disappears as soon as I add the infinite line that is called eternity to it.

So many people are concerned with this life and what may come in the “end times”. They spend hours, days, weeks and months of their lives trying to work it all out. People can get so concerned about their eschatology. But if your mind is on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father you won’t be so worried about your eschatology.

What is your life if not just a vapour, here one minute gone the next? How much better to be filled with joy for these fleeting moments, to place our hope fully on the grace to be given to us when Jesus is revealed, when we who are hidden in Him will be revealed with Him?

To transition well from this life to the next is better than to spend your time afraid of things that may never happen in this life. Many people have been predicting dire events and tragedies to come while comfortably enjoying food fit for kings in dwelling places which are better equipped than the most sumptuous palaces of even 100 years ago. Peace and security reigns in their societies where they walk the streets and countryside protected by the rule of law with the only real causes for fear being those they have invented within themselves.

And instead of being grateful for the blessings they experience every day they worry and cause others to worry about things that have not yet happened.

What if there are terrible things yet to come? How would worrying or trying to predict them help in any way? Surely, if they are so terrible then there is nothing you can do anyway? Would you not receive the grace required at the time you need it?

What did the early Christians do when faced with persecution, loss of life and property? What did those involved in the reformation do when faced with unimaginable tortures, disgrace and loss just because they didn’t wouldn’t pay the pope his “Peter’s pence”? What do our brothers in China, Myanamar, the Middle East, Pakistan, India and many other parts of the world do today?

I can’t remember any of them trying to encourage their brothers and sisters by saying “its going to get worse!”

If you call yourself a Christian and are on social media promoting negative conspiracy theories about dire events to come (or even those you believe are happening now). Stop. Please. You are not helping anyone. No amount of self promotion about intercession, knowing the times and spiritual warfare justifies it. We are not impressed by your knowledge and interpretation of the Old Testament prophetic Scriptures, events in Israel or your insights into the “woke” liberal left.

There are more important questions that need to be answered than those. How is your relationship with your wife and children? Are you in submission to your brothers and sisters in Christ in a healthy church (not just an echo chamber you have joined yourself to)? Are the fruits of the Spirit increasing in your life? Love? Joy? Peace? Patience?

Will you transition well? What is Jesus going to say to you when you meet Him? Well done good and faithful servant or depart from Me I never knew you? Or will there be a cloud of gentle, humble believers standing with Him that you can’t see because of the brightness of the glory surrounding them? A glory you missed out on because your mind was on earthly things?

Keep your mind on things above not on earthly things (Col. 3:2).