Pastor Rick Warren: Focus on what is unseen

“Things that are seen don’t last forever, but things that are not seen are eternal. That’s why we keep our minds on the things that cannot be seen” (2 Corinthians 4:18 CEV).

Everything you see around you is temporary. The building you’re in, the computer or cellphone you’re staring at, and even your body will one day disappear from existence. Yet it’s what you can’t see around you that will last forever.

And those realities are what truly matter.

The Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians 4:18, “Things that are seen don’t last forever, but things that are not seen are eternal. That’s why we keep our minds on the things that cannot be seen” (CEV).

Spiritual realities are more real than physical ones. We need to focus on the spiritual ones — what’s really real. There are five spiritual realities all of us need to take to heart.

• God made you to love you (see Jeremiah 31:3). God created you to love you, and he wants you to learn to love him back. This is the most important reality of life.

• You were made to last forever (see Ecclesiastes 3:11). The evangelist Billy Graham, who passed away in February, talked about death this way: “Someday you will read or hear that Billy Graham is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it. I shall be more alive than I am now. I will just have changed my address. I will have gone into the presence of God.”

• God has prepared two eternal places. Both Heaven and Hell are real, literal places. They’re not just “states of being.”

• You get to choose where you’ll spend eternity. You won’t accidentally find yourself in Hell one day. You’ll be there because you chose it or refused to choose Jesus and spend forever with him in Heaven. If you choose to make Jesus the boss of your life, you’ll spend eternity with him in Heaven. If you choose to reject him, you’ll spend forever in Hell. You have no middle option.

• You get no second chances to make your choice. Your choice has a time limit. You have your entire life to make the decision, but you never know when your time on Earth is over. You can’t change your mind after death.

Nothing matters more than eternal realities. What you do with these five truths will not only affect your eternal destiny, it will also transform how you live on this side of eternity.