PLAYING THE LONG GAME
Proverbs 23:17-18 NKJV
17 Do not let your heart envy sinners,
But be zealous for the fear of the Lord all the day;
18 For surely there is a hereafter,
And your hope will not be cut off.
The warning in this Proverb is not to be envious of sinners. To look at their lifestyle and become envious is a step in the wrong direction. When someone is envious of a sinner, they have lost sight of the goodness and awesomeness of God. To envy a sinner is to be very fleshly minded, not spiritually minded. For to be envious of a sinner is only looking at the temporary elements of this life. No way is someone envious of a sinner’s spiritual condition.
So Proverbs admonishes us to live in the fear or reverence of God all day. This would involve keeping our heart turned toward God. And keeping our heart in that direction on a constant basis. The challenge is all the day. If you are a morning person, it’s easier to live in reverence of God during morning devotional time before everything gets busy. Maybe you are a night person, and after everything settles down, you can turn your heart toward God. But this verse encourages us to live all the time with our heart in this direction.
And Proverbs gives us an extra motivation for living this way. Surely, there is a hereafter. The word hereafter is better translated as an end. Another expression for this word is an end. And there is an end to this life. There is a future beyond this world. And we know that with God our end, our future is bright, but the end of those who have rejected Christ is horrible. They may be living large today, but nothing lasts forever.
And verse 18 says that the hope or expectation of those who fear the Lord will not be cut off. Our expectations involve this life and beyond this life. And if we consider the end of those without Christ, we should be concerned. This life is the shortest thing we will ever do in the light of eternity. The things we are concerned and troubled about now will not even be a minor thing in 100 years or 1000 years. Eternity is a long time.
A pastor once described our life on earth versus eternity. He said, if you took a cable and stretched it out to the east past the Atlantic Ocean and kept going east forever. And then that cable went west, past Hawaii, and kept going west forever, that cable would represent eternity. Now, if you take a screwdriver and make a scratch on that cable, that scratch represents our lifetime here on earth. We can’t become so focused on the scratch that we lose sight of just how long we will live with the Lord in eternity.
Being rich and famous here on earth guarantees nothing in God’s kingdom. Live for the long game, live in reverence of the Lord.