Care About Your Eternity
Care About Your Eternity¹
How many people have very many concerns and occupations. And the only thing they do not care about nor think of is their eternity!!
Therefore it was good that the Lord Christ, glory be to Him, rebuked Martha, saying:
“You are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed” (Lk 10:41–42).
And this one thing that we ought to care about is our eternity. It is the Kingdom of God; it is our life with God in the endless eternity…
And this is what the Church teaches us in our liturgical prayers:
We say in the Vespers Prayer:
“If the righteous one is scarcely saved, where shall I, the sinner, appear?! (1 Pet 4:18). Hasten unto me, O Savior, by opening the fatherly bosoms, for I have spent my life in delights and lusts, and the day has passed me by and gone.”
And in the Compline Prayer we say:
“Behold, I am about to stand before the just Judge, terrified and trembling because of the multitude of my sins. For the past life deserves judgment. But repent, O my soul, as long as you dwell on earth. But if your evil deeds and ugly sins are exposed, what answer will you give while you are lying on the bed of sins, being negligent in subduing the body?!”
This is the state of a person who thinks about his eternity—about the Day of Judgment and his eternal destiny, when he stands before the just Judge.
Therefore he says in the Prayer of the Veil:
“O Lord, Your judgment is fearful: when You gather the people, the angels stand, the books are opened, the works are revealed, the thoughts are examined. What condemnation shall my condemnation be, I who am seized with sins?!”
A person who cares about his eternity confesses his sins and condemns himself.
He does this every day. Indeed he says in the Midnight Prayer:
“Give me, O Lord, fountains of many tears, as You gave long ago to the sinful woman…”
“When I consider the multitude of my evil deeds, and the thought of that fearful judgment comes into my heart, trembling seizes me, so I flee to You, O God the Lover of mankind… Grant my wretched soul contrition before the end comes, and save me.”
For this reason the saints used to judge themselves and weep over their sins.
Imagine a great saint such as St. Arsanius, the teacher of the kings’ children—he used to weep until the eyelashes of his eyes fell out, though he was great in virtues. And he used to say:
“Grant me, O Lord, that I may begin”… “I have not yet begun”…!
Arsanius had not begun?! This is strange… But do not think that he was merely saying words of humility or deceiving himself! No, perhaps he meant that he had not begun the path of perfection, which has no limits…
The ordinary person begins with repentance. And the saints who have passed through repentance and entered the life of holiness begin the path of perfection. And whenever they compare themselves with perfection, which has no limits, they feel that they are sinners, and they weep for their sins…!
Look at an example of thinking about eternity: David the king and prophet:
In all the appearances of kingship surrounding him, and with all the greatness and majesty, we see him saying:
“Make me to know my end, O Lord, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am. Behold, You have made my days a handbreadth, and my lifetime as nothing before You. Surely every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Surely every man walks about like a shadow…” (Ps 39:4–6).
Therefore, even in all his troubles, he was occupied with the words of God…
He chanted them day and night. And he says:
“O how I love Your name, O Lord; it is my meditation all the day” (Ps 119:97) …
“How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey and the honeycomb to my mouth” (Ps 119:103).
And his troubles did not prevent him from meditating on the words of the Lord necessary for his eternity…
There were the responsibilities of the great kingship and the problems of surrounding enemies—
the problem of Abner, the commander of Saul’s army;
and the problems of Joab the son of Zeruiah, the commander of his own army, and his brothers;
and the problem of Absalom his son, in his betrayal and rebellion against him;
and the problem of Shimei the son of Gera who insulted and cursed him and reviled him…
And despite all that, we see David—who cared about his eternity—saying:
“Princes sat and spoke against me, but Your servant meditated on Your statutes. For Your testimonies are my meditation” (Ps 119:23–24).
He did not care what they were saying against him, because he was occupied with meditating on the sayings of the Lord. And he also says in the same meaning:
“Many are those who persecute me and trouble me, but from Your testimonies I have not turned aside… I loved Your commandments… The beginning of Your words” (Ps 119:157).
He was not occupied with troubles because “His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night” (Ps 1:2).
He who cares about his eternity is not distracted from it by problems, for how easy it is for the devil to offer him problems every day.
But David was not like that. He had countless enemies. He said of them:
“More than the hairs of my head are those who hate me without cause” (Ps 69:4).
But in the face of his enemies he had his psalms and meditations, and the name of the Lord in his mouth, for “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe” (Prov 18:10). And thus David says to the Lord:
“In Your name I lift up my hands; as with marrow and fatness my soul shall be satisfied” (Ps 63:4–5).
Also those who care about their eternity are not distracted from it by material things…
Solomon the Wise became preoccupied with material things and with the love of women, and he almost lost his eternity. He said of this:
“I built houses for myself… I made for myself gardens and paradises… I acquired male and female servants… I got for myself male singers and female singers, and the delights of the sons of men, a concubine and concubines… And whatever my eyes desired I did not withhold from them” (Eccl 2:4–10).
And what was the result? The Scripture says:
“And it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God as the heart of David his father” (1 Kgs 11:4).
And Solomon received punishment from God:
“And the Lord became angry with Solomon” (1 Kgs 11:9).
And when Solomon repented and began to care about his eternity:
Then he said his deep and famous saying:
“Then I turned myself to all the works that my hands had done, and to the labor that I had toiled in doing them, and behold, all was vanity and grasping for the wind, and there was no profit under the sun” (Eccl 2:11).
There are persons who care about building themselves, but they build themselves in a wrong way.
Each of them says: How do I find myself? How do I build myself? And he searches how to give himself dignity and glory and greatness… through positions and ranks, or through fame, or through money… Then all this is lost from him, and he has gained neither heaven nor earth, nor does he take anything of all this with him when he leaves the world and stands before God naked…!
And some may say: What is the meaning that I think about my eternity while I am still young in age?!
When I grow and enter into adulthood or old age, then I will think of such matters…! Forgetting the saying of Scripture:
“Remember your Creator in the days of your youth” (Eccl 12:1).
History gives us an idea of saintly children and youths.
Like St. Abanoub, St. Cyriacus, and St. Timothy—about whom his teacher the Apostle Paul said:
“And that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation” (2 Tim 3:15).
Likewise St. Mark the Anchorite, St. Shenouda the Archimandrite, St. Theodore the disciple of Pachomius, St. John the Short, and St. Misael the Anchorite, who reached the level of wandering in the wilderness at about seventeen years old.
All those cared about their eternity from their youth, and they shone like lights in the Church while still young—like St. Athanasius the Apostolic, who, while a young deacon at the Council of Nicaea, astonished the 318 bishops, heads of the churches and their delegates.
There are persons occupied away from their eternity by conflict with others:
One of them says: “My mission on earth is to uproot the tares from it,” and he imagines tares and becomes occupied with uprooting them. And while he does that he uses judgment and insult, rebellion and anger, criticism and destruction. And he stumbles others in what he does, trying to tear down many structures.
And while he uproots what he imagines to be tares, he himself becomes tares:
He loses his spirituality, and loses humility and love, and loses “the gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God” (1 Pet 3:4) … And in all this he forgets his sins, and forgets to remove the plank from his own eye before removing the speck from his brother’s eye (Matt 7:3–5). And with all that he may go to Communion unworthily (1 Cor 11:27–31)… and loses his eternity…
He who cares about his eternity feels that he is a stranger on earth:
Behold, the great prophet David says to the Lord:
“I am a stranger before You, a sojourner like all my fathers” (Ps 39:12).
And he also says to Him:
“I am a stranger on the earth; do not hide Your commandments from me” (Ps 119:19).
And the Apostle said of the fathers, the men of faith, that they “confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth”, waiting for “the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (Heb 11:13, 10).
And the stranger is not attached to the earth and its glories but prepares himself for his eternity:
He does not delight himself with what he acquires here. Rather he prepares himself in a period of testing, and if he succeeds in it, he becomes worthy of the blessed eternity… Here on earth he fills his vessels with oil to light his lamp like the wise virgins (Matt 25:4).
He prepares himself with repentance, with judging himself, condemning himself, and purifying himself from every evil and appearance of evil (1 Thess 5:22). Rather he adorns himself with virtues, with all the fruits of the Spirit.
And his soul becomes as it is said in the Song of Songs:
“Fair as the morning, beautiful as the moon, pure as the sun, awesome as an army with banners” (Song 6:10).
“Perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all the powders of the merchant” (Song 3:6).
The spiritual person does not only care about his eternity, but also about his rank in eternity:
“For one star differs from another star in glory” (1 Cor 15:41).
And according to his struggle on earth in acquiring virtues in a life of love and sacrifice, so will be his reward and rank in eternity. For God will “reward each one according to his work” (Matt 16:27). And “each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor” (1 Cor 3:8)… Therefore try to care about your rank in eternity, not on earth.
And do not be like the builders of the Tower of Babel (Gen 11) who wanted to “make a name for themselves” in a wrong way, so the Lord scattered them over the face of the earth.
And remember the Lord’s saying:
“He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matt 10:39).
Be like the piece of fragrant incense, which is placed in the holy fire and gives itself so that it becomes the sweet aroma of Christ (2 Cor 2:15). Beware of being occupied with something that causes you to lose your eternity.
Examine your whole life and your works. And ask yourself with all depth and honesty:
Does my life on earth qualify me that my name be written in the Book of Life?
Ask yourself and ask the Lord who says to you—as to each angel of the seven churches—
“I know your works” (Rev 2:2).
¹ A sermon by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – Al-Keraza Magazine – Year 22, Issues 31–32 (August 19, 1994)
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