Your eternal future is going to be determined by the way you live your life here on earth. I’m not taking about whether or not you’ll go to heaven. If you’ve accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior of your life, your destiny will be heaven.
But God’s eternal plan doesn’t leave you in heaven with nothing to do. He has a plan. The details of that plan are determined by how well you learn from your training on earth. Training? Training for what? you many think.
Training for your eternal purpose. Look at Revelation 1:5-6:
And from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen (NKJV)
One insight into understanding our eternal purpose is found in the phrase “firstborn from the dead.” Jesus is “the firstborn from the dead.” Well, if there is a firstborn there has to be a second born, third born, and so forth. If you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, your number is in there somewhere.
You have experienced a “new birth” or resurrection in your spirit. Upon Jesus’ return, bodily resurrection is going to follow as well, which we’ll talk about a little later.
The second insight is found in the phrase “has made us kings and priests.” This is past tense; it is already a done deal if you are born again. The Lord has called us to be kings and priests. What does a king do? He reigns with absolute authority, and he has every resource in his kingdom at his disposal to promote his purpose.
This is what we are going to be doing eternally. Kings are appointed for life, and since we will never die spiritually, we will rule and reign as kings with Christ forever.
Ruling and Reigning for Eternity
If we are called to be kings, we must have something to rule over. I used to think about this truth pretty narrowly. There are some billions of believers, both past and present, who are going to reign with Christ. That must mean everybody gets two or three square feet of terra firma here on earth to rule over?
It didn’t make much sense. And then I realized that we aren’t called to the earth. We’re called to the universe! We’re called to rule over universal creation everything beyond this earth. Glory to God!
Our sun is a relatively small star in a galaxy that has billions of other stars as well as billion of other suns like ours, most of which also have planetary systems. We’re just one part of the Milky Way galaxy.
As our telescopes have grown stronger, we have discovered more and more nebula or galaxies. As a matter of fact, the estimates range in the billions of galaxies, each galaxy having billions of stars or suns and each of those suns having its own solar system.
Have you ever thought about the beings that populate those galaxies? I have. A lot of people would be shocked if I told them that extra-terrestrial life is part of the big picture. I still run into people who think we are the only life in this universal creation, but that’s a wrong assumption.
Remember what Isaiah 45:18 say? God created the world to have form and be with out void. He created it to be inhabited. We are not the only creation throughout this universe; it is inhabited by other life forms. Science fiction movies will be shamed when you and I one day see the creatures the Bible talks about the winged creatures, four-headed beasts, and angelic hosts!
I know. It’s beyond our natural comprehension, but think about it for a moment. The Jews are the natural seed of Abraham and God likens them to the sand of the sea (Genesis 32:12). Then Paul wrote in Galatians wrote in Galatians 3:29, “And if ye be Christ’s then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” We are the spiritual seed and likened, I believe, to the stars of the heavens which gives us a glimpse of the nature of eternal destiny, ruling and reigning with Christ over a universe whose magnitude most people really don’t intellectually appreciate.
When I was a pilot in the air force, I dreamed about becoming an astronaut. I dreamed about space exploration into unknown worlds and the different things that might be found. But it was a very selective program at that point in time, and it would have taken years beyond the time I actually got off active duty to have even discovered if I could have made it .
It ended up not working out for me to follow that path, so it’s exciting to know I am (we are) going to represent God to all different kinds of life forms out there. I’ll have plenty of time to explore space when I fulfill my eternal destiny!
Excerpt permission granted by Mac Hammond Ministries
Mac and Lynne Hammond are senior pastors of Living Word in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, which they started in 1980. Many outreaches and ministries have launched from Living Word since that time, including Maranatha Christian Academy, a Pre-K through grade 12 school with nearly 900 in attendance, and Living Free Recovery Services, a licensed outpatient treatment program.
Most recently, Mac and Lynne have launched a vision to plant fifty churches across the globe in the next five years. As of August 2024, nine churches have been planted in the Dominican Republic, Ireland, Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, and Guatemala with construction underway for seven more churches in El Salvador, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Prior to becoming a pastor, Mac was a pilot. He served in the Air Force, served two tours of duty in Southeast Asia, and was honorably discharged in 1970 with the rank of Captain. Between 1970 and 1980, Mac was involved in varying capacities in the general aviation industry, including ownership of a successful air cargo business serving the Midwestern United States. A business acquisition brought the Hammonds to Minneapolis, where they ultimately founded Living Word. Currently, Mac is the host of The Winner’s Way and The Winner’s Minute broadcasts and the author of several internationally distributed books. Mac is broadly acclaimed for his ability to apply the principles of the Bible to practical situations and the challenges of daily living.