Prioritizing our time for God and Eternity

by Lino Serrano 8/27/98

A recent poll that took place in the US found that about 90% of

Americans believed in the existence of Heaven. From this, 80% of those

said that they believed that they would go to heaven when they died.

My question for this group of 80% is: considering that 100% of the

time that will be spent in Heaven will be dedicated to glorifying and

worshipping God for eternity, would they still want to go there? If

their answer is yes, then I ask, how much time are they now spending

here on earth preparing themselves in worship and devotion to God?

If a person would take an average week in their life and break it up

into individual hours, and would categorize those hours in how each one

was spent: 1) sleep, 56 hours; work, 40 hours; etc. How many hours

would have been spent in either direct worship of God or in devotion to

him? And if these categories could be calculated into percentages of

the whole (% of 168 hours in a week), how big would that percentage be?

If the percentage is very low, maybe even 0, meaning that they are

giving very little time to God on a weekly basis, then how will they be

able to give Him 100% of their time in eternity?

If we really want to go to Heaven when we leave this life, then we need

to prioritize our time now that we give to God. We need to go to

Church, since if we are not in Church, then we are not in the Church,

since we have effectively excommunicated ourselves. We need to spend

time in prayer and in reading God's Word. We need to spend time in

ministering to God's family, the Church. If we don't do this our hopes

for Heaven are misplaced and our reward at the end of our life, if any,

will be a small one. See 1 Cor. 3:10-15.

Therefore if we wish our reward in the next life of Heaven to be great,

we need to invest in our future now. If a person fails to invest for

their retirement here on earth. They will be forced to work until their

death. But if a person is shrewd and planned ahead by saving a little

at a time, they would have amassed a small fortune to retire with.

If we wish to spend our eternity with God in glorifying and worshipping

him, we need to begin doing so since now, investing our time shrewdly.

Prioritizing the time we give to Him every week. In doing so we will be

preparing ourselves for eternity.