Here, There and Everywhere

I have a tendency to watch sports. One of the sports if football. In the NFL its the 22 guys trying to kill each other at one time over a single piece of inflated pigskin, who become the best of friends when the final gun sounds. A player that I've always enjoyed watching is Ray Lewis, linebacker on the Baltimore Ravens. He was the greatest defensive player I had ever seen during their Super Bowl season in 2000. People would ask me why I think he's so great. I would simple reply, "he's everywhere!" The opponent would run to the right, middle, or left, and there he was to help drive the running back into the ground. They would throw it anywhere, and there was Ray Lewis at the end of the gain to stop the play. We know he's not actually "everywhere," he just has great football intelligence to anticipate where the ball will be and meet it there.

The quality of being everywhere belongs to One, and the knowledge of that should change our lives. David in Psalm 139 records how God is everywhere. There is no place that he cannot go where God was not (v7). God does before him and behind him in protection (v5). Whether heaven or hell or the grave (v8). In the dark, you are illuminated in the sight of God (v12-13). There is nothing hid from our omniscient and omnipresent God, He even knew us while we were formed (v13-16).

How amazing is our God! Yet how accountable it makes us before Him! There is nothing that we can do, that God does not know. There is no thought that we can think that God cannot read. God is always watching.

A children's song came to mind, "He sees what we do, He hears what we say, My Lord is writing all the time, time, time time..." Not only does He know everything, but He writes it all down. Another scary thought perhaps. We will be accountable for everything that we do. If you have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, you will stand someday before the Judgment Seat of Christ. The books will be opened, and each will have to give account of himself to God (Romans 14:12). There will be rewards given, and rewards withheld.

What is it that we are doing for the present to gain eternal reward? I need to quit focusing on things that are temporal, and become more fixed on the eternal. A little saying runs through my mind from time to time, "invest in eternity." Lay up treasures in heaven! What we do now matters for eternity.

The first was at salvation. The greatest investment of all, trading in sin and death for Christ and everlasting life. The bright lights and occupying entertainment didn't matter to us on salvation's day, and yet it often slips back into our lives. That night where nothing mattered more than finding for our trouble soul peace. There we found that salvation was not in anything else, but Christ. His work, His stripes, His blood and His resurrection.

Now that we are on the path toward heaven's gate, we need to set up treasure for ourselves. What am I doing to store up reward? How has my life been one of worship? What will I say when I have to give account at the Judgment Seat? There will Christ be sitting full of glory and holiness, and there will I kneel as an undeserving product of salvation. Live your life right and with eternity in mind so that the world creating, resurrecting, miracle making, all powerful voice might say, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." He sees it all, He knows it all, He deserves it all, and He's writing it all: Invest in eternity.