I was reading along in the second conversation of THE PRACTICE OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD and came across this…

That he had been long troubled in mind from a certain belief that he should be damned; that all the men in the world could not have persuaded him to the contrary; but that he had thus reasoned with himself about it: I did not engage in a religious life but for the love of GOD, and I have endeavoured to act only for Him; whatever becomes of me, whether I be lost or saved, I will always continue to act purely for the love of GOD. I shall have this good at least, that till death I shall have done all that is in me to love Him. That this trouble of mind had lasted four years; during which time he had suffered much.

So many of us have been brought up with a focus on the end result, i.e. getting to heaven and spending eternity with God. With questions like “What are you going to say when God asks you why He should let you in?” or “You don’t want to spend forever and forever in burning hell do you?” or “If you died tonight, where would you be spending eternity?”… and I am not saying that eternity with Christ is something to snuff at; it’s not. However, if God’s main desire was to have us in heaven with Him, he would have just taken us to heaven and been done with it. There is a reason we are on earth and why we have to live our lives UNTIL He calls us home: His Glory. I usually think the saying “To heavenly minded to be of any earthly good” is pointless. We must have our eyes fixed on the goal and looking at the end. However, the goal and the end are NOT the same. The end is heaven, but the goal is God Glorified! 1 Corinthians 9:24 says, “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win.” We are to run “in such a way” that we may win! For us, crossing the finish line first is not winning; it is living a life that is worth of God lloking at us when we finally do get home and saying, “Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’! (Matt. 25:23)