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Dear friends:

Pastor Bill Powell reminded his congregation that the duration of this life is but a blink of an eye compared with eternity. Really, it is less than a razor-thin slice of the distance from here to the end of the universe.

Yet, most people spend great energies on what falsely seems important in this world, and little to none on eternity. Then with another blink of an eye, they are gone, forever -- some so sudden they are not even able to say goodbye.

The pastor said that when he was a teenager, he suddenly had the revelation that he was but a heartbeat away from that eternity and he should live his life accordingly. Once gone, it will be too late. We will not be able to rewind or go back as with a VCR, and "re-record." Our lives will have been recorded as on a "read only" CD. God will do the reading.

The apostle Paul had this perspective in mind when he wrote: "If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory" (Colossians 3:1-4).

This reminds me of another famous blink, or moment, or twinkling of the eye, which is at the resurrection/rapture:

"Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed�in a moment (Greek: atomos, cannot be cut in two, or divided, indivisible), in the twinkling (Greek: rhipe, beat, moment of time) of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed" (1 Corinthians 15:51.52, NKJV).

Let us spend this present eye-blink slice of time on earth preparing for that eye-blink slice of time at the resurrection/rapture, which will thrust us into the eternal presence, face-to-face with the blessed Savior, in a world without end, amen.

"Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure" (1 John 3: 2-3).

Jim