Do you have your eyes on what is happening internally? Do you know that in all of the circumstances of life, in all of the things you go through, God is renewing you inwardly? He is building within you a new character, a new life, and a new personality, one that will exist for eternity. That is why this is all so important. If our life began at birth and ended at death, thinking about the future would just be absurd. As Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians, "If I have fought wild beasts in Ephesus for merely human reasons, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die’ " (1 Cor. 15:32). But if we are eternal creatures, if we are going to live forever in one state or another, then what is happening to us now makes all the difference in the world.