eternal perspective

In just a little while, the wicked will be no more;

though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there.

But the meek shall inherit the land

and delight themselves in abundant peace.

Psalm 37:10-11

This entire 37th psalm is a series of contrasts between the wicked person who tries to live without God under self-generated goals and achievements, and the righteous person who trusts and obeys the Lord. In the end the person without God has nothing. But the person who trusts God is rewarded with a stable life and blessings from the Lord that extend into eternity. The psalm encourages us to stay faithful, and not to envy the ungodly.

What’s to envy? It is a very real temptation, because there is this brief time where the wicked do seem to be having a really fun thing going on. They may even have wealth, and they may even appear to happily get away with all kinds of selfishness and wrongdoing. But they do fall into judgment, sometimes in this world. For sure, at death, they have no reward.

The prosperity this world appears to offer is very short-term. It lasts “just a little while” and then the wicked and righteous alike must answer to their Maker. Nobody lives on without this eventual experience. And since every person on the planet is born a sinner, answering for the wrong we do is inevitable. The wicked will be taken away, but the humble righteous who have turned meekly to God will go on to a full inheritance knowing peace with God as the true prosperity of soul that provides everything any human could ever want.

I take these insights from David’s song, and I think about them in the light of the gospel. It does appear that wicked people will temporarily prosper in this world. I don’t see the wealthiest people on earth committed to gospel proclamation. Yet they are also accountable to God, whether they believe it or not. Mortality is the great leveler of economic status! And wicked people who may have gotten away with wicked things? They will answer too! If they have not repented of sin to trust Jesus alone for salvation, even billions of dollars will not buy them eternal peace. The poorest of beggars that has entrusted everything to Jesus will know a richer inheritance forever. Everything this world offers to compete with Jesus loses out in the end.... and it doesn’t even come close. But Christ followers have an inheritance in which to delight in abundant peace... now and forever. God cares for us, provides for us, keeps us, blesses us with every spiritual blessing in Jesus, and will bring us into an eternal kingdom with Jesus forever. That is the life perspective I believe with all my heart!