Does God Care About Now Or Only Eternity?

I came across a quote a few days ago, and the more I’ve thought about it, the more it bothers me.  There is some truth to it, but then there is some things that it alludes to that I think misses the mark.  The meme that the quote is found on is included below.

I agree that some churches have stopped talking about sin and eternity.  That is to their detriment.  Preachers are charged with preaching the whole word of God, so we have to preach against the bad, as well as preach the good.  I also agree that there is no promise in scripture that if you give your life to Christ, then everything in this life is going to go well for you.  That’s simply now there, however, some of these churches that have gotten away from preaching against sin seem to preach a “prosperity gospel”, meaning that if you are a Christian then you are going to prosper in this life.

What I have an issue with in this quote is that Jesus did care about the well-being of the people that He was ministering to, in their physical lives.  That doesn’t mean that that was His only focus, but most of the miracles He performed were done to help people in their lives, not necessarily only in eternity.  He healed the sick, lame, blind, mute, and even raised the dead.

He also said this in Matthew 11:28-30; “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  Does that mean that everything is going to be great?  Or easy?  Not at all.  But I believe that it means that if we are in Christ, when the bad things in life happen, we have His help in getting through them.  Not that He will take them away completely, but that we have the God of the universe on our side.  He will give us help and rest when we need it.  Just having a relationship with Him should make going through the hard times more bearable, but that doesn’t mean they won’t come.

I guess what I’m trying to say is this; Yes, we need to preach against sin, and we need to preach on eternity, because Jesus came to save us from our sin.  Our God, however, does care about us in the here and now.  That doesn’t mean that if we follow Him then everything is going to be easy, but it can mean that it will be easier to face the hard times in life when we have Him to lean on.