Live With Eternal Perspective Podcast Episode 026 Mind Fixed On Eternity

Welcome to the Terri Hitt – Live With Eternal Perspective Podcast
Episode #026 – Mind Fixed On Eternity

Thank you for entrusting and investing your precious time with me to grow in Jesus together. I am blessed to be back with you today to discuss more ways to live with eternal perspective.

This episode is beginning a little differently. I want to start with a specific request. Right now I want you to concentrate on where your mind is focused. Search beyond this podcast to what was on your mind before it started.

Have you ascertained what is engaging your attention? Now think about what is attracting your heart.
Deep questions, I know. But ponder your conclusions. Do your answers cause you to fumble or to seize opportunities to draw nearer to God today?

We know it takes concentrated effort to live a life pleasing to God.

What about a life protected for God with a mind fixed on eternity?

Proverbs 4:20-23 says,“ My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart. For they are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flows the springs of life.”

The springs of life. Some Bible translations say the “wellspring” of life. What does that mean? A wellspring is the head or source of a river, stream, or a spring. It is the source or supply of something that is considered inexhaustible.

Who is our wellspring of life? Our Heavenly Father.

Does your heart contain what the Father’s would? What He desires for you?

Now let’s look at water that flows from a wellspring. Have you ever thought about the purpose of a river? From the mountaintop down to the delta where the river flows into a lake, ocean, or reservoir, the river doesn’t just flow. It changes the surface of the earth as it moves.

Just like Jesus did and still does.

The water cuts rocks, moves boulders, and permanently changes the land in its path. The river continues on to create a wide and flat valley where it can flow smoothly toward the ocean. Water movement has purpose. Our lives must be as intentional, not just flowing along without a course.

As we stay connected to God, our wellspring, life has purpose. We access mighty strength and abilities through the Lord as He works through us, permanently altering and influencing not only us, but those we come into contact with as they witness Him alive and flowing through us.

Deuteronomy 11:18 says, “Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.”

If we are to fix His words in our hearts and minds, and bind them on our foreheads, it means we must diligently keep our heart with all vigilance, we are to guard it. To place barriers around it. When we think of protecting something precious to us, we imagine setting a barrier that keeps the item far from harm.

Imagine if you lived next to a cliff with a drop of 500 feet. Your curious two year is toddling around the yard. You are distracted and take your eyes off them for just a few moments. As your toddler heads toward the cliff, you continue with your task, unaware that they are almost to the edge. At the last second you look up.

Are you devastated that you can’t reach them before they plunge off the side? Or are you relieved that you had the foresight to place guardrails to protect from disaster? Did you build your fence at the edge of the cliff? Or did you build an extra tall, secure, and strong barrier many hundred feet away from the cliff so that your child would never be at risk?

Examining our heart inclinations and desires, then placing proper guardrails to protect and nourish our relationship with God is essential if we wish to stay connected to the wellspring and maintain a healthy passage. Instead of feeling restricted, as we place godly boundaries on our heart and mind, we draw nearer to God. We become more sensitive to His heart, ways, and desires for us, and expose ourselves to become attuned to what God is showing and speaking to us.

We are to keep God’s words, instructions, and promises to us within our heart and on our mind. We are to be attentive to them, to see and listen to them as we complete our days. They are healing life to us when we obey. Our heart, the feelings we hold in it such as what we love or desire, will govern how we live because we always make the time to do and follow what we think about and enjoy.

In Proverbs, Solomon instructs us to make sure we concentrate on what will guard our heart and keep us directed toward God. We are to keep our focus fixed above, with blinders on to what would distract us, and not be sidetracked or detoured by the sin that so easily rules and entangles us in this world.
In order to positively influence others for the Lord, we must be living with a mind fixed on eternity, focused with the purpose of making each moment we experience now count for eternity. We live in the present, but our motives are not fixed here.

We know our life is a fast blink compared to everlasting days with God. Christians understand that we are supposed to live our lives and manage our priorities in ways that honor God and take each moment captive for Him. Jesus could return at any moment!

It’s easy to be caught in the rush of the world we live in and allow the thought of eternity to be shoved into the recesses of our mind, never becoming a thought that causes us to act. Or change.

How do we ensure that we purposely seize our moments and days captive for the Lord?
How do we make them matter for eternity?
How do we ensure that all we experience draws us nearer to Him?
How do we focus on living with a mindset fixed on eternity?

How do we set on minds on things above, not on earthly things as instructed in Colossians 3:2?

We must release ourselves in order for God to transform and revive us.

1. Focus our heart on Jesus. He is the destination and the way simultaneously.
2. Accept God’s sovereignty.
3. Own a study Bible and absorb His word.
4. Follow the Spirit of the Living, Holy God inside us.
5. Pray.
6. Live with an abundant gratitude attitude.
7. Serve Jesus by serving others.

Each one of these steps serves a very important purpose in building a strong foundation for living with an eternity-focused mindset and growing and deepening our walk with God through Jesus.

Self-evaluation is crucial when we truly desire God to lead our life. Some live with the mindset of having additional time to do what we want and reflect on God later. Or often we think we have released expectations, desires, unforgiveness, bitterness, heartache, dreams, plans, and more to God, but our Heavenly Father is a Master at knowing what is deep within our heart. He understands exactly what we need to surrender and the timing and actions in which He must allow us to do so.

One question we need to be brave enough to regularly ask ourselves is, “What am I clutching that I need to release?”

Seek the ways you experience emotions or feelings that are contrary to God’s. Feel them and surrender them to Him. Once they are removed, fortify your mind to keep them out.

We simply cannot draw nearer to God in a deep and full relationship without trusting His supreme power and authority.

While it is beneficial to know that He is good, capable, and in control, it is different than trusting absolutely everything in our life by yielding to God and His dominion over us.

We must choose to place our confidence in God in order to fully release our life to Him. It is the only way to begin living with minds fixed on eternity rather than what we experience now.

What steps can we take to enable us to surrender ourselves to Him?

1. Read His word. Take that best-selling book off the shelf and invest precious time learning His commands and promises. We cannot recognize deceit and imposters if we do not know the truth. God’s truth. We cannot prepare, strengthen, or protect our mind without modeling His.

2. Pray. Talk to our Heavenly Father. He allows us to call Him father for a reason. He intentionally created each of us and deeply desires intimate relationship with every single one of us. Listen for Him to respond and instruct you. Listen for His discipline. We need both.

3. Pray His words. Mighty power flows through the words of our Father as we pray scripture back to Him with trust and faith.

4. Live with gratitude. Doesn’t it feel good to gift someone and receive their grateful acceptance? Our Father offers us so much, even blessings we fail to see, and we can never give Him enough credit for all He does or has sacrificed for us. Living with gratitude despite circumstances prepares our heart and mind to consistently live with an attitude of gratitude that He richly deserves.

5. Visualize the relationship you want with God and the eternity you would love to share with Him. We must keep our mind focused on what truly matters to create and sustain the lifestyle we need to achieve it. If you want to live a life that will please the Father, you must create and live it today.

6. Seek and Share Him. As we live in ways that honor God and we grow and deepen our walk with Him, He will automatically make a difference in the way we live, speak, and react. He will shine through us in ways that attract others to His light and love and He will direct us to step outside the safety of our comfort zone to serve Him and discover His strength flowing through us.

Psalm 143:8 says, “Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life.”

How much joy each new morning should bring when we commit our ways to Him. Though the days be harsh or afflictions in this life press against us, we can still choose to place our hope and trust in Him.

Psalm 62:8 says, “Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.”

God is our shelter, our protection from danger. Run to Him. Cry out to Him. Place your hope in Him. Trust Him. Even when we perceive what is happening in our life as good or bad, right, or wrong. Remain full of hope and confident that the Lord is present through any emotion or feeling that may feel otherwise.

Recall past faithfulness of God or seek His trustworthiness from His word or the testimony of others. He loves all of us the same. He will be just as steadfast to you. Work to build trust just as you would with any other relationship. It takes effort and desire to grow healthy communication and faith.

A person growing a strong relationship with God finds joy in viewing eternity as our final destination and perceives this world as one piece of their life journey.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 says, “Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

We cannot live in true freedom through Jesus if we do not view every moment through our Father’s eternity-driven motives. Even on the cross, Jesus was not centered on Himself, but His Father’s will. He was focused on our eternity.

2 Corinthians 5:6-9 says, “So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him.”

Most of us believe we are alive and here for a purpose. We must remember the purpose should be centered in God’s will. We must strive to know and obey what He directs for our life.

Pivot is such a popular word in our culture right now. Let’s use it for eternity-driven lives. Shift or pivot your mindset and heartset to pattern the life of Jesus and what He came to model for us. Allow Him to teach you how to follow the eternity-driven purposes God has tailor-made for you.

If we authentically, with our wounds, scars, pivots, and heart pursue God, then we will also develop the ability to authentically show Him to others. As we deepen and grow our love for Jesus, we are able to genuinely serve Him through the gifts and talents He graced us with for the purpose of serving Him and others.

We don’t have to say, “yes” to everyone or everything in order to serve, but a close and obedient relationship with God prompts our response for Him to be, “yes.”

Living with eternal perspective encompasses every aspect of our life, as well as those around us. Absolutely everything we do or say, our attitude, gratitude, and mind or heartset, impacts those others for eternity. Our heart, whether purely fixed on following Jesus or corrupt through our flesh and this fallen world, will direct our life. We must guard our heart, allow God to set boundaries, and follow Him through faith, trust, and obedience. Our mind and thoughts become our will and affections. Where are yours directed?

How are you affecting others today?
How is your life affected by Jesus today?
Where are you placing your boundaries?
How far are you from the ledge?
Where is your mind fixed?

Luke 9:25 says, “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost?”
Jesus calls us to crucify this temporary life to gain eternal life with and through Him.

1 John 2:15-17 says, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.”

This verse is speaking to three important ways the word, “world” is used in the Bible. We have the system of this world, which opposes the Lord and follows Satan. We see the world of creation, which would mean false gods or idols that this world serves so well, and we know the love of the world, meaning human beings, which might mean that a person has never experienced salvation through Christ.

Guard your heart and fix your mind beyond this world.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 says, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is One. And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These words I am commanding you today are to be upon your hearts. And you shall teach them diligently to your children and speak of them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as reminders on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates.”

God is so clear in these verses. Our Heavenly Father urgently instructs us to fix our minds upon Him and to teach of Him diligently at all times. Our thoughts are to remain fixed on Him, through Him, in every way, safeguarding and preserving our minds for Him while we live in this temporary stopping point.

Isaiah 40:6-8 says, “The voice said, “Cry out!” And he said, “What shall I cry?”

“All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, Because the breath of the Lord blows upon it; Surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.”

His word stands forever.

John 12:24-25 says, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

We must fix our minds and hearts on eternity.

Revelation 21:1-4 says, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

Our present will pass away. He will dwell with us. Will our hearts and minds be ready? Build your security now. Fix your mind for eternity and drive your actions and attitudes with it.

Build that fence far from the cliff.

Did you enjoy this episode? Would you like others to hear weekly encouragement to learn how to live with more of an eternal perspective? Right now, because the podcast is new, listeners can’t find it unless they specifically know the name to search for. You can help by leaving a quick review and rating for the show and by sharing about the podcast on social media and word of mouth. Can you think of a friend or family member who might enjoy encouragement? If so, please share this podcast with them. Until next week, keep looking Up and finding new ways to Live With Eternal Perspective.