12Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. (1 Timothy 6:12, NIV)
In Disneyland’s early years, one attraction was the Monsanto House of the Future. It featured a “home” that claimed to represent the future. Though the world has not really adopted the unusual design of the Home of the Future for residences, it did include a microwave oven, years before it was so available. The Home of the Future was removed in 1967, but because of Disney’s fascination with future living, it was replaced with the Carousel of Progress, a rotating theatre program featuring animatronic people in various eras of life, including, of course, the future. The Carousel of Progress, with its catchy tune, “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow,” spent six years at Disneyland before being moved to the Magic Kingdom in Florida, in 1975, though with a new theme song. It is said that Walt Disney loved the Carousel of Progress, perhaps his favorite Disneyland attraction. The song “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow” was known to be Walt’s theme song. He had a particular fascination with the future and sought, in his unique way, to bring it into the present. Disney, in his preoccupation with the future, reminds me of the Apostle Paul. Paul did not build models of futuristic homes. But he did speak often of the future in his letters, urging his readers to live in the present with a future orientation. In 1 Tim. 6:12, for example, Paul writes, “Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” Notice the middle section of that verse: “take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called.” The phrase “eternal life” (zōē aiōnios) literally means “the life of the age to come.” Eternal life is what will come when God restores all things and rules completely over heaven and earth. Notice that we are called to eternal life. This is similar to what we see in 1 Thessalonians 2:12, where God “calls you into His kingdom and glory.” God invites us into the life of His future, when He will wipe away every tear where there will be “endless peace” and God will rule “with justice and with righteousness” (Isaiah 9:7). Put differently, God calls us to eternal life. Yet, this eternal life is not something we will only experience in the future. We are to “take hold of the eternal life” to which we have been called. This is something we do now. We hold on tight to the promise of a new way of living. As we do, we begin, even now, to experience dimensions of this life. Whenever, for example, we receive God’s forgiveness or forgive someone who has wronged us, we are participating now in something that will be fully realized in the future. Or, when we seek to make our workplaces more just, we are opening up a way for God’s future to impact the present. These are two of countless ways in which we can take hold right now of the eternal life, the life of the future, to which God has called us. Gracious God, help me to take a hold of Your eternal life today. Comments are closed.
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