“This world is not my home, I’m just passing through. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue. The angels beckon me from Heaven’s open door And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.”
[Words and Music by Albert E. Brumley]
I like good advertisements. They entertain, they inform, and yes, they also make me want to buy stuff. So I watch them with discernment and tell my children to do the same. I guess we are all aware by now of the dangers of a materialistic market economy that is basically predicated on people buying stuff whether they need the stuff or not.
More recently I am beginning to see that advertisements are potentially hazardous to our spiritual health on another level. They make us forget heaven.
Advertisements push products that are for this world. Watch enough of them and you begin to define life purely in terms of life on this earth. You forget heaven.
I was taking a young adults camp recently. We were discussing marriage and single hood. I shared that I know that there are people who would make great Christian wives or husbands and who desire marriage. Yet for reasons that are not made known to us the Lord does not bring suitable life partners into their lives.
I shared the hard truth that none of us get all we want, and that includes legitimate desires, this side of heaven. Even those who find the mates of their choice will probably have to experience the trauma of widowhood, a fact conveniently left out in marriage preparation classes and wedding sermons.
No, this world is not our home. Like the rest of creation, in one way or another, we groan for the new heavens and the new earth (Romans 8:18 – 25). We find the strength to go on because we know that there is another place where there will be no more sin, no more tears, no more death, and yes, no more loneliness.
The New Testament writers were very aware of the life to come. Jesus Himself promised that if we sacrifice anything for the Kingdom we would be reimbursed in this life and in the life to come (Matthew 19:27 – 30).
Many of the earliest Christians suffered for the privilege of following Christ. Choosing to follow Christ brought few of the things promised by today’s ads. Yet there was a clear understanding that:
“What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived- these things God has prepared for those who love him” [1 Corinthians 2:9 TNIV]
It is precisely this understanding I see missing in much of the church today. I see this lack in my own heart. And as a result we are seriously weakened in our resolve to follow Christ. We are hesitant to make the costly choices required of us as followers of Jesus.
I am sure our current amnesia of heaven has many causes. I am beginning to suspect that advertisements are one of them. I know of no advertisement that speaks of life in the life to come. All of them make you desire things in this life: holidays, cars, clothes, food, etc. and the things they are supposed to give you: pleasure, popularity, significance, etc. They are all things that are rooted in this world.
Therefore daily we are bombarded by sophisticated advertisements that root our hearts in this world. We forget heaven, and wonder why our discipleship is so wimpy.
I suspect that this “this world only” spirit has also infiltrated our approach to ministry. Church growth methods, promises of healing, the push for efficiency and results — they all often presuppose results in this life. Where is the call to be faithful and obedient irrespective of our results in this life, a call based on the conviction that the final audit of what is successful or not lies elsewhere?
I have good friends in the advertising industry and I believe that Christians should be salt and light in all legitimate work. I pray that they will find the wisdom to do their work with honesty and creativity. I pray that they will know what lines to draw and where. However I am very clear that the potential to betray Christ is as present in church related vocations as it is in advertising! We need to hold each other accountable.
I do believe however that the final responsibility for whether we forget heaven or not lies ultimately with the church. We cannot blame advertisements if we do not lay the proper spiritual foundations in our churches. When was the last time you heard a sermon on heaven and its implications for life today?
The postmodern mood of the new millennium is a great time to live and speak for Christ. But the maelstrom of the present era also means that we must be securely anchored if we are to be of any good to ourselves or to others. More than ever we need to be reminded that the anchors of our faith and life lie elsewhere. We must be heavenly minded if we are to be of any earthly good.
Your brother, Soo-Inn Tan