Sword Art Online and Eternal Reality

Sword Art Online is amazing and here is why! This anime demonstrates how we should be looking at life through the lens of eternity.  Confused? Allow me to clarify if you have not seen it yet.  A new game, Sword Art Online (SAO), that is a fully immersive Role Playing Game (RPG) has just been released and gamers are checking it out.  However, they are not able to exit the game.  As it turns out they are locked in and the only way to escape is to beat the game to get back to the real world. Oh and if they die in the game, they die in the real world... (bum bum BUUUUUUUMMMM!!!!!) So the goal is clear: to beat all the levels and make it to the end of the game.

How does this relate to our life/faith you may ask? If you look in the Bible there is the constant struggle of being too focused on what is happening around you in life that you can forget what I like to call The Eternal Reality. Jesus gave a reminder that it is God that can destroy not just the body, but the soul as well (Matt 10:28). In fact, it was Jesus' resurrection that showed that there is something past this life.  This is why Paul is so driven in his letters to remind us that we are not just living for this life, but that there is "a goal that he was pressing for." (Philippians 3:14) It's like we are in SAO and playing the biggest RPG of our lives, but when we exit this game (die) did we prep ourselves for the eternal reality?

So player, how are you keeping the Eternal Reality in mind while you are going about in life? How are you reminding yourself and others that this is just an RPG and that we need to have the ultimate reality as the goal?

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