Live for Today?

I came across a big mural on the side of a building the other day which said, in colorful, graffiti-style letters:  Live for Today!

Of course, there’s a measure of wisdom in this slogan.  If you’re always pining for the past or dreaming of tomorrow, you’ll miss the real people in front of you now.  Healthy relationships involve being emotionally present with the folks God has put along your path—so look them in the eye, and be there, today.

Still, “live for today” can be a very harmful motto to follow.  My main gripe is with the way this outlook ignores the life-forming, hope-giving, courage-building role of the eternal future promised to all who trust in Jesus.  The hope of heaven is so vital!

Paul Tripp laments the “eternity amnesia” that’s prevalent in the church.   People become absorbed with the now—with gain and loss and pain and pleasure today.  We fall for the culture’s message that “all we have is now.”  Delayed gratification is out the window, especially if the delay extends into the age to come.  Eternity amnesia forgets that this world isn’t where we ultimately belong, and that we’re traveling to our glorious forever home.

When Jesus was about to leave his disciples, he reassured them of the future:  “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:3).  There will be an intervening season, and it may go on for a long time.  But in the end, Christ will return, and “we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17).

And this grand hope needs to inform and guide and enliven us now, today.  You might say believers live today for tomorrow:  we anticipate our magnificent future in the company of Jesus.  What’s more, we see people around us and think of their eternal destiny as well.  Do they know “the way”—are they trusting in Christ for their passage into the presence of God (John 14:6)?