John Bevere - Understanding Life's True Value
- Watch
- Donate
He said, «John, I go to America quite a bit.» He said, «You Americans, you American Christians, live with a 70- or 80-year mentality. Our people live with an eternal mentality.» All right, we’re at the end of the second week; we’ve just finished day 14. I want to talk to you about this very, very important chapter. You know, I traveled to a church down in South America; it was actually in Brazil, and I remember I spoke to only the pastors and leaders, and there were 12,000 people in the building.
Okay, 12,000, only pastors and leaders were allowed, and I remember just being in awe of how passionate they were—I mean, they were blowing the roof off the arena. The next day, I’m having lunch with five or six leading pastors of this church network in Guania, Brazil, and I remember I asked the question, «Now, how many people are in your churches?» You know, all these leaders last night—how many people are in the church? They said, «Over 300,000.» I was like, «Oh my gosh, that’s a lot of people.» I said, «Now, how long has your organization been going?»
I was expecting to hear 80 years, 120 years, and they looked at me and said, «Oh, we’ve been in existence for 16 years. The whole thing started with one family 16 years ago.» I dropped my fork. I said, «Okay, whoa, whoa, whoa! How do you build a church network of over 300,000 people in just 16 years?» Now, I thought I knew the answer to that question. I thought they were going to say it’s because of our small groups, and the leader who sat across the table from me, who spoke the best English, said, without even hesitating, «It’s because we teach our people about eternal rewards.» And I—what he said—said, «John, I go to America quite a bit.» He said, «You Americans, you American Christians, live with a 70- or 80-year mentality. Our people live with an eternal mentality.»
Now, this is significant. When we have a 70- or 80-year mentality, you know what? We’re going to make decisions differently than if we have an eternal mentality. We’re going to endure things with an eternal mentality that we wouldn’t endure with a 70- or 80-year mentality. We see life through the scope of eternity. This is what Paul is talking about; he is saying, «For we must all appear and be revealed as we are before the judgment seat of Christ.» This is 2 Corinthians 5:10–11. «So that each one may receive his pay or his reward according to what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.» Did you hear «evil»? Remember our darkest secrets and our private motives; remember that, okay, considering what his purpose and motives have been and what he has been busy with and given himself and his attention to accomplishing. Then, you know what Paul says: «Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.» Wow!
Now, stop and think about this. What did we learn in the last chapter? The fear of the Lord keeps us in touch with our motives and intentions. We can actually deceive ourselves when we lack the holy fear of God, and we can think we’re doing something good when we’re really not. But the fear of God keeps us in touch with our true motives and intentions. So why is that important? Because what we do with the cross determines where we’re going to spend eternity. Most people know that it’s heaven or hell, but the way we live as believers determines how we’re going to spend eternity. You see, the Bible says that at this judgment seat—the believer’s judgment seat—the decisions that Jesus makes over our lives are going to be eternal; they’re called eternal judgments.
The word «judgment» simply means «decision.» He’s going to make decisions over our lives as a result of how we lived as Christians, and those decisions are going to determine how we spend forever and ever. Now, a lot of people have this image of heaven being this really boring place, like it’s an eternal worship service, and I’m going to be yawning a lot. I’m going to be on a cloud playing a harp, eating grapes. I’m going to be out of a body; I’m going to be this kind of spirit thing floating around.
No, no, no—a million times no! Heaven’s going to be exciting—much more exciting than this Earth. There are going to be cities to build, there are going to be cities to plan, there are going to be galaxies to explore and develop, and you know what? Those who are close to Jesus will be the ones making decisions with Him on how to shape eternity. You know what? It’s going to be amazing, and the way we live in this short time on Earth is going to determine our positions, our authority, that we have throughout eternity. Let’s do this. Let’s stay in the fear of God, because Paul said if we do, we will have a great and favorable judgment one day when we stand before our King.