The more we mature, the more we realize that we are eternal beings living in a temporal world. We all have certain limitations to work within, so it’s important to be wise about how we allocate our energies—physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. This could have been a motivating factor behind the prayer we find in Psalm 90:12, “So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

To live effectively for God, we’ve got to be living in the right time zone. Some are stuck in the past, dwelling on past mistakes that can’t be changed, or even consumed with past victories that may keep them from accepting current opportunities. Others are living in the future, worried and fearful about things that may never happen.

Which time zone should we be living in? We should be living in the moment, and for eternity. Billy Graham noted the connection between the now and the not yet. He said, “Heaven doesn’t make this life less important, it makes it more important.” Maximus said in the movie, Gladiator, “What we do in life echoes in eternity.”

I want to live so that when I stand before the Lord I have no regrets about how I lived my life, and how I invested my time, talents, and treasures in this earth. Of course, none of us will have lived flawlessly, and for that, we can all be grateful for the grace and mercy of God. Yet, we aspire with Paul, “So whether we are here in this body or away from this body, our goal is to please him” (2 Corinthians 5:9, NLT).

We’ve all heard of people who were labeled as being “so heavenly minded that they’re no earthly good.” We don’t advocate that, but in reality, probably far more people are so earthly-minded that they’re no heavenly good. In other words, they are so consumed with the “here and now” that they give little thought to the spiritual or the eternal. John Tillotson said, “He who provides for this life but takes no care for eternity is wise for a moment but a fool forever.”

In this sense, Christians need to live with an awareness of two time zones. We see a reference to this in 1 Timothy 4:8, where Paul said, “…godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come.”

The Apostle John also identified these two dimensions when he said, “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” (1 John 3:2-3)

A wise Christian recognizes who he is and what he has now, but he also realizes there is more to come. According to John, a future hope governs and mightily influences our present-day actions. We have been made new spiritually through the new birth, and we are growing in other ways as well (our mind is being renewed, our bodies are presented to God as living sacrifices, etc.), but we know that a greater, ultimate transformation also awaits us. We can say, “I’m not all that I shall be, but thank God I’m not what I used to be,” and “God loves me just the way I am, but He loves me too much to let me stay this way.”

Four Necessary Realities
In order to walk properly with an awareness of two time zones—in the tension of “the now and the not yet”—there are some principles for us to be mindful of and to walk in.

1. We are in the world but not of it.
Jesus’ prayer in John 17:15-17 is most revealing. He prayed,“I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.” In essence, Jesus is not wanting us to be isolated from the world, but to be insulated from the evil that is in the world.

Dwight L. Moody said, “A Christian in the world is one thing, and the world in a Christian is quite another thing. A ship in the water is all right, but when the water gets in the ship, it is quite a different thing.”

Paul taught that, “…our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ…” When we understand our ultimate identity, and the reality of Who we really belong to, we’ll have a deeper appreciation for what it really means to be in the world but not of the world. We don’t get our values, our moral, our ethics, or our priorities from this world system; we receive them from God and His Word.