03/31/2026
What if our life is a speck of dust? You know, the dust you see laying on your coffee table. You know you need to "pledge" that stuff off of there but can't find a minute to do it. So you just swipe it with your hand as you walk by. That dust.
Not all of it. Just one piece of it...
What if our life is the length of that piece of dust?
If you stacked 1 Quintillion pieces of dust on top of one another, it would be 334 times the distance of the Earth to the Sun. The stack would pile 11 times the distance of Earth to Pluto (which I still call a planet!)
If you tried to count one number per second, it would take you 31.7 BILLION years to get to 1 Quintillion.
That's eternity....and then...it starts all over again.
My life...one speck of dust.
Eternity...I cannot even wrap my brain around that idea.
This issue of what is on the other side really kind of matters, and to just assume it will all work out well is not the same as hoping the weekend plans work out well. It's heavy stuff.
So coming face to face with truth and eternity and our place in the cosmic story is beyond important.
I do know this. Every religion on the planet, including secular humanism and atheism, is mankind's effort to be good enough to reach something better. To reach paradise or create paradise here.
Only in Jesus, does God love our specks of dust so much that God pursues us. He comes to us. He comes down to deal with the whole problem of sin and pain and dysfunction in the world. And He does it by dying...on a Cross...because the truth of our being "good enough" is that we cannot be good enough to reach a holy God or to create paradise here.
According to God, our "goodness" cannot save our eternity or our present world. Not because He is unkind and ungracious, but because He is completely pure, separate in His goodness and perfect in His nature and character.
God Himself says it this way:
We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind. - Isaiah 64:6
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God - Romans 3:23
That sin is so serious that it derails the present and the eternal. Paradise is not an option on our own and life continually works to remind us of that fact.
But God provides the answer.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. - John 3:16
The door way to eternity in Paradise is not a religion, a set of rules or an idea to attain to. It's a Person Who loved us enough to die for our sin. By Jesus' work on a Cross and His resurrection from the dead three days later (witnessed by 500 people who were willing to die for that message), we can find hope in this life and assurance for eternity.
That's why Jesus rode in on a donkey. To sacrifice Himself for the hope of abundant life here and eternal life in Paradise with Him and the other specks of dust that dare to believe in Him.
One day the door will close, and the One Who rode in on a donkey will return on a white horse for battle. Evil will be dealt with once and for all, and those specks of dust in union with Jesus will reign with Him forever on a new heaven and a new earth for eternity.
This Easter season, don't get religion. Don't let the sin of other "Christians," of Church hurt, or the busyness of racking up glory and stuff and pleasure for this speck of dust keep you from Jesus. Don't buy the lie that you must "clean yourself up" before you can come. Just come! Come and follow Him, and your life will never be the same. On this speck of dust...or eternity's.
Romans 10:9-13
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame." For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
