I thoroughly enjoyed reading Stephen Witmer‘s book Eternity Changes Everything. He has a pleasant, chatty, easy-to-read writing style and his passion for his subject shines through on every page. For me, it ranks right up there as one of the best Christian books I have read on eternity in terms of getting me excited about where I am headed and how that changes life now.
A theme that links together the later chapters is that of a tightrope walker: ‘The central point of this book is that Christians are meant to live, and can live, in a healthy, exhilarating, joyful, productive, frustrating, painful, challenging tension between restlessness and patience.’ The author uses a graphic of a tightrope walker balancing between ‘contentment’ (because of where we are headed) and ‘dissatisfaction’ (because we’re not there yet) and in each future chapter, he adds to this picture. I was impressed that the graphic worked perfectly on my Kindle and was well-aligned with the text.
Pastor Stephen draws out wonderful insights from the Scriptures in this book, and links Old Testament types with New Testament truths beautifully. He is clearly a gifted teacher with a deep love and respect for the Scriptures and for the Lord.
This book doesn’t just raise our expectations in seeing the new heaven and earth as a certain reality to look forward to, it also challenges as to how that truth impacts our lives in the here and now. This is not a book full of theory, but one of practicality – our lives are meant to be impacted. Pastor Stephen does not take for granted that all of his readers will be believers, and he creates opportunity for his readers who don’t know Jesus to put their faith in Him. For believers, he encourages us that because we are citizens of heaven and our identity is in Christ, our lives are changed and we experience ‘restlessness with patience’ as we anticipate our future. The result of this is that as we learn to need the world less, we end up loving the world more.
It’s a miracle whenever unlovely things and unlovely people are loved with heavenly love. As citizens of heaven extend the love of the new creation into the here and now, this world sees a better world to come.
Eternity changes everything is a book I am already recommending to my friends as a resource that will encourage, inspire and teach. I loved its contemporary style and that it is jam-packed full of biblical truth. I’m very grateful to Cross Focused Reviews and The Good Book Company for supplying me with a free e-copy of this book for the purpose of writing a review.
