September 17, 2002

When You Get to Where You are Going

The story is told and an Army chaplain who was asked to preach at a church some twenty miles from his army base. He took his family along but neglected to tell his six year old daughter where they were going. After a few miles on the road, she asked "'Dad, when we get to where we're going, where will we be?" A good question! It's also one all of us should try to answer for ourselves.

Paul told the Corinthians, "Examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith, prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?" (II Cor. 13:5) Think of your journey of life. When you get to where you're going, where will you be? If you continue in the direction you are going in the physical sense, where will you be next year? In five years? Twenty years from now? What will you look like physically? How much money will you have saved for the future? How many of your goals will you have accomplished?

More importantly, consider your spiritual life. If you continue in your current direction, where will you be spiritually in five, ten or twenty years? How many people will be able to point to you as a positive influence in their lives? What will your record of contribution to the Lord's cause reveal? How much will you have grown? Just where will you be when you get where you are going?

Still more important is the subject of eternity. Since there are only two possibilities regarding it (Mt.25:46) In which place will you be when you get where you are going? The Lord will one day come in " flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Thes. 1:8) Would you be among that number if that day should be today? Have you obeyed the gospel? If not, consider just where you will be when you get where you are going?

-Eddie Gilpin