Recognition, appreciation, rewards, prestige, and acceptance can come from one of two places, people or God. If we get them from people, we have it for that fleeting moment and it is gone. If we get it from God, it will last for eternity. That shouldn’t be much of a hard choice. It should be a “no-brainer.”

But, we still have this battle between the body and us, our spirit. Our spirit understands Jesus’ principle completely. Our body wants comfortable, beautiful, convenient, and impressive possessions. It also wants the praise, appreciation, recognition, prestige, and rewards from people; and it wants them now. It has no eternal comprehension.

We know WE are going to live forever. Jesus has made that very clear to us. But, our body is aging and deteriorating. It is obvious to it and to us that it isn’t going to last forever. It is wired with a temporal perspective. This gives the body an I-want-it-now attitude.

If it doesn’t get it right now, here on this earth, it will get depressed, feel rejected, get lonely, start feeling hopeless, and a lot of other emotions. None of us want to go through all of that. Somehow, someway, we are going to have to give our body a shot of happiness and appreciation. So, Jesus is constantly holding out all the eternal benefits we will get, if we allow Him to change our evaluation of what is valuable.