Hey again! I have to say, I’m really excited about today’s discussion, and I’ve really enjoyed all that I heard from you guys in the past couple of days. Lots of good questions, lots of God questions, that I’m looking forward to answering when my Membership Community opens in a couple of days!

Now remember, we’re discussing what the Bible really says about eternity, and I’m giving you some concrete handles for how to live your life in light of that reality. Jesus made us all an offer of abundant life, and He intends to keep His promises. The Bible shows us the way, and has been showing us the way for thousands of years, if only we have ears to hear.

We talked about several men and women who are completely transforming their lives in light of the fact that, according to the Bible, God’s eternal purpose is to restore the earth and unite everything in Heaven and on Earth in Christ. God wants Heaven and Earth to overlap completely. It’s what He created in the beginning, it’s what he intends for eternity, and it’s what he wants for our lives now. Everything should change for the better once you grasp the message.

And if you don’t know me, I’m Tim – the pastor and author of the Overlap Life who was blessed by God to be given this opportunity to teach from the Scriptures in the first place.

Allow me to let you in on a little secret: what we shared yesterday and the day before is only part of the puzzle. What you received yesterday was “information” about what God intends to do for His creation that He made and called good in the beginning. You know the facts now; you have received new, startling, wonderful information. New information is amazing! I love learning new things more than almost anyone I know.

But knowing something isn’t the same as doing something about it. If knowledge were all we needed, librarians would all be billionaires with six pack abs. If knowledge were all you needed, you would never see smoking doctors or lawyers in jail.

Unfortunately, knowledge isn’t all you need. You need to implement that knowledge and put it to work. A pastor friend of mine once said “wisdom that hasn’t been acted upon is like paint left in a bucket – nothing changes until it’s applied.”

So maybe it makes sense to come up for an overall view of the journey we need to take. Let’s back up for a moment and see what it looks like when we start to put God’s Eternal Purpose to work in our lives.

We’ve talked quite a bit about Step 1 on the Journey we’re going on together – our first task as a Collective is…

Step 1 – Understanding Eternity Biblically

What are we headed for? What is God’s plan for His universe? What does the Bible have to say? What do the symbols mean? How do we go about interpreting these things? Not everything can be known – but what can be known? We’ve already covered a ton of ground here, so I won’t belabor the point – just know that there’s plenty more that we haven’t talked about, simply because we haven’t had the time. There’s lots more to discuss.

Next, we get to start applying this teaching. And before we pick up this amazing message and carry it out to the ends of the Earth, it really needs to settle into our own bones and start to change our own lives. That’s our first big task after we learn what God’s plans are.

Which brings us to the next major step:

Step 2 – Living Our Identity

What is a Human being, in God’s eyes? What are we made of? What are we made for? If we’ve misunderstood God on the subject of Eternity – are there places we may have misunderstood Him when it comes to what humans are? What sort of role do we play in this story? What does God hope for and expect from His children? How does the Biblical definition of Eternity shift around our priorities and understanding of who we are? What are we capable of, really?

These are massive questions that will take some time to unpack and figure out. But there’s plenty to do here, so many of my students spend a couple of weeks right here, doing nothing else but soaking in the truth about who they are and learning to act it out in their own lives.

But once we’ve camped out there for a bit, we move on to…

Step 3 – Living the Story

To quote Samwise Gamgee from “The Lord of the Rings”, What sort of tale have we fallen into? We know the ending because of Step 1, we know who we are, now because of Step 2. But who are the other characters in the story? What are their goals? What are they doing? What should we expect in the weeks, months, and years to come? What are the steps we should be anticipating along the journey, and how are we to contribute to the happy ending God has in mind? Are we heroes, or villains, or what?

Should we expect to be rewarded? What will rewards look like? What do we do with hardships and challenges right now? What should our main goals and priorities be as God’s coworkers?

At that point, we understand Eternity, we understand our identity, we understand the story we’re living in; the main thing from here is to focus on…

Step 4 – Living the Overlap Life

What do we do today to bring that life out into the open and make decisions in the here and now?

What are the helpful tools and re-frames we need to utilize in order to live in accordance with that story?

What sorts of actual, boots-on-the ground tactics and approaches can we take that will lead us into the fullness of life that God offers His children?

How can we find community and a family of human beings that are all committed to the same way of life in following Jesus every second of every day, on the way to the New Creation?

I hope you can see that there’s more to this than just study. We have to re-imagine entire categories of our lives to live this out. It sounds like a lot of work, I promise, but God is good, His plans are perfect, His yoke is easy, and His burden is light.

And the final step on this journey, the one that we are all waiting for whether we know it’s coming or not is Eternal Life & Eternal Rewards in the New Creation. This is, of course, not covered in the course of this program – our job is to grow in continued mastery of the skills of being a Jesus follower every day until we are with Him forever in Eternity. But that day is real, it is coming, and it is yours. The best thing we can do is begin to live every second of our lives in light of that reality starting today.

Now, I love creating these videos and seeing the impact it’s had on all of you… in my next video I’m going to be sharing how to go even deeper, because I’m going to be opening the doors on a program I put together.

It’s a brand new membership community called the “All Things New” Collective, a community of Jesus followers who are serious about really living their entire lives out in light of what the Bible really says about eternity, together.

It’s only going to be available for a few days, and when it goes away, I might not be bringing it back for a couple of months. I’m looking for just a few people to start with to really help me establish an incredible culture on the inside.

So there will be a limited number of seats open for only a few days. And the folks who do jump in at that point will have a full month’s access to me, the teaching, and the community for less than you probably spent the last time you took your family out for lunch.

That’s why I created the “All Things New” Collective. We are a growing Community of passionate Jesus followers who are exploring God’s incredible plan to remake the universe, and transforming our lives by the power of the Spirit to live out that plan today.

We get together every week, we learn, share, answer each other’s questions, encourage, worship, and grow together. We bear one another’s burdens, we study the Bible together, and we have long discussions by the fireplace, brothers and sisters exploring God’s incredible plans for eternity together.

We’re not trying to replace any church communities. But we are a global community of Jesus followers, united around living every second of our lives in light of eternity. And for most of us – our churches don’t talk about this. They talk about going to Heaven when you die, but not Heaven coming to Earth in the end! And there is a WORLD of difference between those two. One makes you want to leave your life and this world that God made and called good – the other makes you want to transform your life and this world, and gives you the tools to do it.

Every week I go live with more eternity-focused material, answering questions straight from the Bible. We go through books together, share music, and love one another radically.

I want you to imagine your life if God gave you the good news that not only are you saved – but that everything you have lost, all the pain you have suffered, all the things you love — will be redeemed, restored, and given back to you forever.

This community is still very new, only a few months old at the time I’m recording this. And right now I’m looking for the few, visionary believers to help me pilot this Collective community. In exchange, I’m giving them access to this community for nearly half off the normal price of enrollment. At the current price, I’m not trying to make money here – I’m trying to keep the lights on and create an incredible community for as low a price as I can afford.

If this has been interesting to you at all, please leave a comment or shoot me an email letting me know what you think! Tomorrow, we’ll be diving in to the nuts and bolts of the collective itself, and I’ll peel back the curtain on what I’ve been prayerfully cooking up over the last several months.

Until then – may God give you clear guidance and direction for everything that’s next, and may He refresh and restore your soul, to give you just a taste of His glorious plan to restore all things through Jesus.

See you tomorrow; further up, and further in.