For the last twelve years, Paul Tripp Ministries has emailed out our Wednesday's Word devotional. We praise God that this little resource has been an encouragement to you at just the right moment. Thank you for sharing your stories with us and forwarding Wednesday's Word to others.

Wednesday's Word will continue, of course, and our ministry wants to add something new to your inbox this year. Starting today, on the first day of each month, we'll send a longer email article that allows me to write more extensively than in Wednesday's Word.

We're calling it Grace + Knowledge, and our prayer is that this new resource helps you "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen" (2 Peter 3:18).

Today's Grace + Knowledge article is on the topic of eternity. Thank you for supporting Paul Tripp Ministries as we connect the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life!

Without the promise of eternity there would be no such thing as the gospel of Jesus Christ, let alone any such thing as gospel hope. If there is no future where justice is meted out and the drama of sin and death is finally resolved, then the Christian faith is not worth living. The people of God wait with hope, but all their waiting, all their striving, and all their hoping are for nothing if there is no such thing as final judgment and the forever that follows.

But there is more. Understanding eternity is vital if we want to understand our faith, apply it to everyday life, and grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Notice how the verse that inspired this new monthly resource, 2 Peter 3:18, includes the words "both now and to the day of eternity."

If you read back a few verses, we'll see the connection between eternity and everyday life. I'm going to focus my explanation in verses 11-13, but I would encourage you to read the entire third chapter.

"Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells" (2 Peter 3:11-13, ESV).

The third chapter of 2 Peter not only tells us truths that every believer needs to know about eternity, but it also tells us that these truths should form the way we live right now. The doctrine of eternity is a truth that not only gives us future hope but also should become for us a hermeneutic for the way we make sense out of our lives right here, right now.

The way we make sense out of our lives then shapes and directs the way we live our lives now. The doctrine of eternity is a foundational Christian interpretive tool. It should define the way we think about our past, our present, our future, ourselves, our God, and our meaning and purpose. Without this truth as a structural part of our thinking we will not make proper sense out of our lives.

There are three practical actions that result as you apply the doctrine of eternity to everyday life: living eschatologically, waiting actively, and embracing God's promise.

Living Eschatologically

"Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness" (3:11).

We should note the structure of this verse: "Since . . . what." It is akin to an "if/then" sentence: if these things are true, then this is how we should live. The very structure of the sentence tells us something important about Peter's understanding of the doctrine of eternity. For Peter the doctrine of eternity is not a distant, abstract, isolated, or impersonal point of Christian theology. For Peter this truth presses in on his daily life. It tells him what is important and, in light of what is important, how he is to make decisions, act, and react at street level.

Then he goes on to say that everything around us, all those things that locate and orient us, all the physical things that occupy and entertain us, every single thing in this created world, will be dissolved. As we look around right now, we realize that everything we are looking at will no longer be. None of it is permanent in its current state. It will all be consumed in a final display of the glory of God's power.

We must let this sink in. It will all, every bit of it, be exposed for what it really is. Every building, every mountain, every stream, every lush garden, every animal, every monument, every tree, every limestone cliff, every sea creature, every sandy shore, every wardrobe of fine clothing, every car, every highway, every place of solace or amusement--yes, every physical thing--will meet its purifying end by God.

It is hard to find a more stunning statement in all of Scripture. None of the things we tend to think will always be there is permanent in its current state. This physical world is not ultimate. God is ultimate, and he will bring all these things to a spectacular end.

It is because of his heart of grace that God lets us know what is going to happen to this place that has been our physical home. He graces us with a knowledge of then so that we can know how to live now.

If someone could look in the future and tell us for sure that a tech company we were about to invest in was going to have a spectacular blowup and fail, we probably would not make that investment. God lovingly tells us about what we would otherwise have no way of knowing or imagining but which is vital to understand for our present living. If all of this is going to be consumed in the end, it makes no sense whatsoever to live for the physical glories of the created world. It is an act of spiritual insanity to attach my identity, my meaning and purpose, and my sense of well-being to what will be changed in an instant. Why would I invest my life energies in those things?

Waiting Actively

"Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God" (3:11-12).

One of the reasons we do not like to wait is that waiting immediately confronts us with the fact that we are not in control. Something or someone is causing us to have to wait. For Peter, however, waiting is not inaction but a call to action. We are not called just to sit around idly until the end. No, there are actions we are called to take because of the end that is sure to come.

But if this final cataclysmic day is already written into God's book, how could anything I do or say right now make any difference at all? We tend to think that the end is the end, and, until then, what we do does not really matter. We tend to think we are small and do not have much power or control, and we wonder how anything we do could hasten the day of the Lord.

Here is where it is vital to remember that, in his sovereignty, God determines not only what will happen but also the means by which it will happen. Peter is saying that the eternity-focused activity of God's people, as they wait for that final day, is a means he has ordained to bring about that day. He has chosen us to be a tool to bring about that which he has ordained.

This means that what we do and say right now really does have eternal significance. This is a call to eternity-envisioned action; action that God has ordained to make a true difference. The cries of longing of his people hasten his return. The prayers of God's people hasten his return. The kingdom commitment and work of his people hasten his return. The evangelism of God's children hastens his return. We wait, knowing that how we wait and what we do as we wait are means by which God brings our waiting to an end.

Embracing God's Promise

"According to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells" (3:13).

Every human being is searching for paradise, but there is no paradise in this fallen world. Wherever we look, our hope and dreams for paradise always disappoint us. Nothing seems to fulfill our golden dreams. Nothing is as good as we wished it would be. Nothing works as we hoped it would. We stumble through the world as a company of dissatisfied dreamers, hoping the next dream will come through for us. We do this because paradise was written into our hearts. We do this because we were hardwired for eternity.

Peter is reminding us to live as though we really do believe that there is One sitting on the throne of the universe who makes promises that are never broken. There is One who always comes through. There is One who always does what he has promised he will do. There is One whose words are always faithful and true. There is One who does not change his mind, take another direction, or turn his back on those who are waiting. There is One who never gets bored, never gets tired, and never gets too busy to do what he has promised.

There is a Promise Maker who is unlike any promise maker we have ever encountered anywhere else in our lives. He is fully able to keep every one of his promises because he rules all the situations and locations in which those promises need to be delivered. The promised game has forever changed, because onto the field has come the Lord of lords. And whatever he says will come true, because no one can question him, no one can get in the way of his will, and no one can stop his hand. No one.

So what is his sure and secure promise? It is a promise of something unbelievably beautiful after the end of life as we know it today. There is something so far out of the field of our experience and so distant from anything we can imagine that it is hard to wrap our brains around it. The promise is that God is going to transform our home. No, we will not end up floating on clouds and playing golden harps. He is going to give us a new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness will dwell unchallenged forever.

Righteousness does not just mean that the new heavens and new earth will be inhabited by a holy God and people who are now partakers of his divine nature. It means that everything will be righteous. Everything will be in its proper place, doing perfectly what it was meant to do. Nothing will rebel against the Creator's plan. We will enjoy uninterrupted peace and harmony forever.

The Bible has a name for this: shalom. The shalom that was shattered in the garden will be restored forever, never to be broken again. Perfect righteousness will reign forever and ever. This is glorious glory.

The doctrine of eternity assures us that God will fix everything that sin has broken. It tells us that right now we should live with that promise in mind. It warns us of the impermanence of physical things. It preaches to us the eternal importance of the way we live as we wait. And it promises us an end that is far more glorious than anything we would have dared to hope.