Our Proper Obsession

One of the exams I'm studying for right now is Western Civilization I - a comprehensive history from the beginning of the world until 1648 AD. "About a foot wide and an inch deep," as someone put it. As part of my studying, I watched a documentary on Netflix called Alexandria which related the history of Alexander the Great's conquest of Egypt and construction of this city he named after himself. Alexander showed his brilliance when he first conquered Egypt and came to the people "as one of them," opposed to being an outsider, offering sacrifices to their gods, respecting their religion, and even giving lavish gifts and money to their temples. The Egyptians quickly adopted him as a god, but Alexander had much to learn about their religion. This is what the documentary said about it:

Alexander had to get to grips with [this], a culture that not only believed in life on earth, but which was obsessed with life after death.

This was unfamiliar to the heavily hedonistic, temporal-visioned Greeks. And that's one thing that the Egyptians had in their religion (false though it was) that Christians today, like the ancient Greeks, seem to lack - proper obsession. That is, obsession with the afterlife. Egyptians knew well that this life wasn't all. In fact, in comparison, this life was but a brief and bitter taste before the wonder to come - the Buckley's before the spoonful of sugar. And though the Egyptians' complicated polytheism was false and much different than orthodox Christianity, we seem to have lost that remembrance that the best is yet to come. For the child of God, this life is but a brief and bitter shadow before we see the glory prepared for us.

That's why we're called to live in light of eternity right now. There's an old saying that goes, "Don't be so heavenly minded that you're no earthly good." My dad has often pointed out the error and unbiblical approach in it. Repeatedly in Scripture, we are called to focus our mind on heaven, not on the earth, perhaps no verses more clear than Colossians 3:2-3, 5:

Set your minds on what is above, not on what is on the earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with the Messiah in God. ... Therefore put to death what belongs to your worldly nature.

And again in Philippians 3:18-20:

For I have often told you, and now say again with tears, that many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. ... They are focused on earthly things, but our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

As Christians we ought to be obsessed with life after death, knowing that that is what counts and this earthly life is but a puff of smoke, a breath that evaporates into the air. Our proper obsession is not with anything on this earth, and especially not this life, but with the life to come. Unfortunately we forget this often, don't we? Our obsessions are doled out on the things we can touch and see - even if it's only for this little while. Blinded by a flavor of this sort-of humanistic hedonism, it's so difficult for us to keep the kingdom of heaven elevated above the crumbling kingdom of earth.

So let's repent and right now make a covenant to live for the kingdom of heaven today - to have a proper obsession. Let's set our minds "on what is above, not on what is on the earth." For we must remember who we once were but are no longer. We "have died" and our "life is hidden with the Messiah in God." "Our citizenship is in heaven." Let us never forget.