Where Do You Think You’re Going?

-from Three Questions by Jim Wood

There are three principal views that seem to dominate the landscape with regard to this question. The first view growing in popularity, especially among young people today, is the view of an atheist, a secularist, a materialist. A view that says, “This life is all there is. You only go around once, you die, and then you turn back to dirt.”

Not only will there be no dogs and cats in heaven in the view of these people, there is no heaven. This life is all there is. We are pieces of highly evolved slime, and when our time is up, we go back into the ground and turn into mulch. That’s it. There is no future. There is no life beyond the grave.

Many people believe this, because it’s a convenient view, particularly when they’re young. If there is no God and there is no future beyond the grave, then I can do whatever I please. In fact, the Bible refers to this line of thinking. The apostle Paul tells the Corinthians that if there is no resurrection, we might as well “eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”

This is not a new idea. It is regaining some popularity in our culture, but it is a very old view. I doubt that many who would read this devotional hold this view, but you need to be aware that many people do hold this view.

The apostle Paul says: If we have put our hope in Christ for this life only, we should be pitied more than anyone. 1 Corinthians 15:19

Real Christianity involves living a transformed life, and if the life of a Christian were only for this temporal life, it is a very foolish way to live. The Christian life is a life of intentional self-sacrifice. We are commanded to take up our cross daily. We are called to die to our own desires and listen for the voice of the Holy Spirit. We are called to obey even when it might cost us everything. Christians live in light of eternity. Where we believe we’re going has a profound impact on whether or not we go where we are called to go now.

There is a second view that is more popular than you might imagine. It is belief in reincarnation. It’s not just for “wing nuts” like Shirley MacLaine and other aging “New Agers,” who once upon a time were young hippies. There really are many other folks in the world that we need to be aware of even as we live in a somewhat insular community.

Over sixteen percent of the world population is from India and that number is rapidly climbing. Many of these folks, plus others around the world, are Hindu. Even people who don’t claim to be Hindu — they might just claim to be talk show hosts — are imbibing this belief in reincarnation. They really believe they are in a continuous process of being recycled. They want to do the right thing so they can come back as something better in the next life.

It is interesting to me that almost all of them believe they used to be a princess or a duchess. Nobody used to be a maid. Nobody used to be a galley boy. They were, instead, an admiral or a pirate. It’s very sad. It’s embarrassing: “I know I may not have amounted to much in this life, but in my last life, if you could have known me, then I was somebody. I was a hot ticket. I was the original Casanova.”

There is a desire to tap into something bigger, but obviously an enormous resistance to getting to know God. The belief in reincarnation is a convenient way to avoid the reality: …just as it is appointed for people to die once—and after this, judgment. Hebrews 9:27

The biblical view is that all of us, after we die, are going to have to give an account before God. Every single person on the planet is going to spend eternity either in heaven or in hell. There is no limbo. There is no purgatory — no neutral place for those who didn’t get their act together in time. There’s not someplace else to go and work off your sins and impurities.

“What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”