Ep. 128 | Mindsets (Part 10): Eternity Is My Reality
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What if the way you're thinking about life, success, and even time itself is far too small?
In this episode, Rob Dayton explores the final mindset of Jesus and one he believes may be among the most important: Eternity is my reality.
Most people live with a limited earthly mindset, measuring life through decades, accomplishments, possessions, and temporary concerns. But Jesus invites us into something far bigger.
Rob unpacks how an eternal mindset reshapes fear, priorities, relationships, and purpose. He challenges the cultural and even church tendency to think only within the boundaries of earthly life and invites listeners to begin living from heaven's reality now.
Drawing from scripture, practical teaching, and research surrounding near-death experiences, Rob explains why eternity is not something that begins after death, but a present reality that transforms how we think and live today.
He also shares personal reflections about obedience, stewardship, and loosening earthly attachments while offering practical ways to retrain the mind toward heaven, love, and eternal purpose.
If you've ever struggled with fear, felt consumed by temporary concerns, or wondered how to live with greater peace and purpose, this episode will stretch your imagination and challenge your perspective.
You’ll Hear
• Why Rob considers the eternal mindset one of the most important mindsets of Jesus
• How the earthly mindset quietly shapes fear, priorities, and decision-making
• Why eternity begins now, not simply after death
• The difference between living from earth versus living from heaven
• What Jesus teaches about reward, stewardship, and storing up treasures in heaven
• Why relationships and love matter most in eternity
• Rob's personal story of releasing attachment and stewarding resources for the Kingdom
• How near-death experiences and scripture together can shape an eternal perspective
• Practical ways to meditate on heaven and retrain your thinking toward eternity
Journal Prompt
• Jesus, describe heaven and its importance.
• Holy Spirit, what dominant behavior pattern of mine is inconsistent with the reality of eternity?
Recommended Reading
📖 Heaven by Randy Alcorn
https://a.co/d/01GneSO6
📖 Imagine Heaven by John Burke
https://a.co/d/04hcwqr7
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Welcome to the 100X Life Podcast, where we activate people who desire to live the words of Jesus and experience the abundant life He promises. I'm your host, Rob Dayton, and I hope this podcast inspires you to put in the work of following Jesus.
Hey, 100X lifers, welcome back to the podcast. We are on mindset number 10, which is Eternity is My Reality. We've been working on the 10 mindsets of Jesus. This is our final week. And if I had to choose only a few mindsets, in other words, just a few of the ones that I would give you, this would be in the top three mindsets. This one is so important. I think an eternal mindset is perhaps the most important thing that someone learns in the master's In the master's program, the three-year journey, if if a man or a woman comes away with an eternal mindset, I would call that success. But the problem is it is the hardest one to teach. It's the hardest one, in my opinion, to acquire. We can talk about it in the room, but many do not have. And will not reprogram their brains to automatically serve this mindset up in any situation. the dominant culture mindset of a limited lifespan is often too powerful for people to overcome. Remember, our goal in developing a mindset goes far beyond simply believing it in our minds and hearts. We are working to consistently and persistently focus on a mindset, so much so that our brains transform, they rewire the neuro passages in our flesh, which is our brain, it transforms and is renewed so that we have automatic, fast-thinking behavior that is in alignment with Jesus' love behaviors and what we say. We believe A lifetime limited mindset is so pervasive in the church and in our culture, this is a very difficult thing to do, but it's getting easier. In fact, it's never been an easier time to develop and form this mindset. But before we get into it, let's review the mindsets of Jesus we've discussed so far. So, week one, the preeminent mindset is that we have To believe in the one God sent, which is Jesus, that they are one, that he is the Son of God. That is the most important mindset to believe in order to move into any mindset. Week two, we talked about the mindset of living as one led by Jesus. That is the mindset where Jesus is taking us somewhere. He's taking us on our journey. And then we are throughout our day thinking about where he's taking us and making decisions based on following him. In week four, we discussed. The reality that you are the dwelling place of God and you dwell in Him, and He dwells in you. Wow, that makes you important. And that's gonna, we're gonna double down on that one today. week five, we focused on the reality that all people bear the image of God. How does that transform the way you treat people and see people every day? Week six, we are focused on the mindset. I'm a servant to all. The concept of Jesus that he doesn't argue with the desire to be great. He just says greatness is being a servant of all. Developing that mindset is so significant to Jesus' following. Week seven, we focused on the mindset of forgiveness. Forgiveness and that unforgiveness is a cancer. And we're just we're just not gonna let that happen. We're not gonna hold anything against anyone. we're just gonna let it go. And week eight, we talked about the mindset that worry is faith in the enemy. That wow, if we are thinking that things are gonna get worse or bad, we're we're actually believing in not God. We're believing in the enemy. And then last week we were focused on the mindset is which is the counter to worry, which is God is working all things together for my good. How did it go this past week? Really exercising that one. I hope it went well. before we discuss the eternal mindset, let's think about the present earthly mindset. This is the one we're most naturally going to be drawn to is the earthly mindset. the current dominant way of living is framed within our imagined lifespan. You know, somewhere shy of a hundred years. And we think of our lives in decades. As kids, we tend to have an eternal mindset, which is kind of ironic. We were resilient and we and we thought we would live forever. I maybe you recall that thinking as a young child. And it's interesting to me that this is a more accurate mindset than the one we've developed. It reminds me of Jesus' word on become like a child to enter the kingdom of God. Yeah, that's the eternal mindset. In our 20s and 30s, many of us adopted the American dream. So we learned a skill, we made money, and we worked as hard as we can. And the goal is to stop working as young as possible to enjoy ourselves. And at some point in life, we recognize our lives will certainly end. And in the temporal way of thinking, this can be disruptive. In other words, you're feeling like the fuse is running out. I'm not gonna have many years to live. And that thought is a very limited mindset. That's not thinking eternally. And then people begin to regret what they did or they didn't do. And the culture reinforces this mindset culturally. Constantly. That's why it's so challenging. We talk about people who have died in the past. Tense. Susie was a kind person. You know, like she doesn't exist anymore. We remember significant leaders from the past, like this person did this. Even we talk about our parents. Yeah, my mom was this, my dad was this. In the past tense, as if they're not living. And it all feels so temporal. This is true in the church as well. The Christian culture tends to use the same finite terms regarding life. Although we reference heaven, our Christian focuses squarely on the limited time we have on earth. So here's a question: when does eternity begin? When does eternity begin for you? The way most of us live, it begins when we die. It it's in another dimension that we don't really understand or study or discuss. Earth seems so real and heaven so vague. But eternity begins with the existence of God and us with them. Paul's instruction to Timothy, this is 2 Timothy 1-9, he says. he, meaning God has saved us and called us to a holy life, not because of anything we have done, but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time. We have always been known to our Creator, and He will always be known. Existence of the soul and the Spirit is eternal. How could we live like this? And what difference would it make? it's striking to me when someone dies at an early age and people say their lives were cut short. That is proof of a limited temporal mindset. The problem is not an early death, the problem is that there is any death at all. what is missing 40 to 60 years of life in this reality compared to the millions of years in the internal reality? It just makes no sense. It makes me think of Francis Chen's red tip rope. And if you haven't seen that video, just Google Francis Chen's red tip rope. I've watched it, man, probably in the hundreds now I've watched it because we show it in the master's program. And the reason we show it is that Francis has this. Rope that he says is going around the world. It's just endless. It's a timeline of your existence. And then he shows the audience. This little part of the rope at the beginning, which he's taped in red, and he says, This red tip is your life here on earth. And then you've got millions and millions of years with Jesus in eternity. And all we think about is this red tip. That is the earthly mindset, is a focus on the red tip of a very long rope. I love when he says he's Yeah, we're gonna save, save, save, save, so we can really enjoy this part. And his question is, well, what about it? Everything else. And he and he shares that the Bible instructs us, and this is the key to moving into eternal mindset, is the Bible instructs that what we do here on earth makes all the difference for millions of millions of years. And the wrong mindset, the earthly mindset, ephemeral mindset, shapes all our decisions in life. Priorities for our time, our talent, our money. They're all shaped by a limited lifetime mindset. Jesus gives us many commands to overcome this. They all point to an eternal thinking here on earth. As I mentioned at the onset, this mindset changes everything. Desire and pursue this mindset, and fear will have no place in you. Fear is rooted in limitations and short-sightedness. It can control most decisions. If we live with a full view of eternity as our focus, we start the journey to fearlessness. We operate from heaven and not from earth. How do we get this mindset? Well, first thought, what does eternity look like to you? What do you think? You know, some people think, ⁓ this is, you know, and we even have a song, I, you know, you'll probably recognize the one where all we'll do is worship 24-7. That is not a biblical view of heaven. the traditional view is is clouds and harps. It's just like you're it's like the work here is is on earth, and then when we get to heaven, it's like this lazy or eternal worship vibe, which is not consistent with the Bible. Let the many instructions of Jesus guide the construction of your eternal mindset. He says that we are to do work that endures to eternal life. He tells us to store up treasures in heaven. he says that where your treasure is, there also will be your heart. So Where is your treasure? Is it here on earth? Are you accumulating here on earth? Or are you accumulating in heaven? This one just really has sank so deep into my life as Nancy and I have made this last journey, this last season of selling our house in Santa Barbara and moving to Bend for the sole purpose of. The money that was under our Santa Barbara house and using that for the kingdom, using that for other purposes, and the freedom that has generated, detaching my heart from the property. Truly, my heart had some roots in that house in Santa Barbara. That has been uprooted. And now I'm more thinking about well, how what am I doing now to put things in eternity as Jesus instructs? We want an eternal mindset that consumes our focus. Want to see heaven as something to be treasured. And in the teachings of Jesus, the focus is on reward in heaven. It's pretty crazy. There's three motivations that God gives in the scriptures: love, fear, and reward. Those are the three: love, fear, and reward. And reward is used twice as much as the others combined. He says that what you do in the earthly realm will guide how you live in heaven. One of his parables demonstrates that in the earthly realm, we are stewards of everything that is his. Our time, our talent, our money, they're all his. We're just managing the things that are his. But in the heavenly realm, we become the owners. We are given responsibility in heaven based on our demonstration of stewardship here. Isn't that interesting? In the heavenly realms we become the owners, in the earthly realm, we're just the stewards. Some might push back here and say, Get Rob, that sounds like so selfish. To want a reward in heaven. And I get pushback on that all the time. And as I mentioned in 100x Life Jesus created desire. Desire is not bad, it's part of creation. The problem of earth is not desire, it's desiring the wrong thing or the ephemeral thing, which is this earthly plain like wanting to take everything with us or accumulate here. Jesus invites greatness in heaven, and here's the price be a servant to all. So it's not that he's arguing with greatness. Greatness and reward, he's saying how to get there, and that's through servanthood. That's through taking up your cross for other people, seeing them as image bearers. And love is the primary ingredient of servanthood. In fact, all of Jesus' commands point to the behavior of love. God is love. Love is the weightiest thing in existence. now there are faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. An eternal mindset focuses on love. As the earthly mission and role. And love cannot be love unless it is given. John says in his first epistle that we cannot say that we love God unless we love people as well. It turns out that love is the focus of eternity. And to have an effective eternal mindset that guides your every moment, you need to become consumed with the reality of heaven. Okay, I'm gonna recommend two books that you read side by side. I keep these pretty much rubber banded together because I'm going back and forth. Here's the first one it's Randy Alcorn's Heaven. Randy does a great job of resourcing the scripture to paint a clear picture of heaven. Read and rework this book until you've worked the reality of heaven into your brain. That's gonna be very helpful for you. Randy Alcorn's Heaven. But the Bible can only go so far. In fact, much of the imagery in books like Revelation. Has led to much disagreement about the timing of heaven and Jesus' return to earth. Fortunately, science is catching up with scripture as it always does. I believe science, like, like if this over here is all spiritual and this is all scientifically proven, I feel like science just moves the spiritual into the scientifically proven. So many of the the findings of science just point to God So science is catching up, and I believe that science is simply a demonstration of the reality of God in eternity. So the second book I'm recommending to get us into this reality is Imagine Heaven by John Burke. Imagine Heaven by John Burke. It turns out that over two million people have had near-death experiences where they have either gone to heaven or to hell and they've come back to tell us about it. I call this the science of heaven. Consistent, repeated observations and experiences of heaven. so imagine heaven. John Burke does this excellent job of fielding all the stories in a place where it's super consumable, and we begin to get a picture of heaven. That is real because people have been there and reported back to us so many people, and the consistency is amazing. here's just a couple of the things that have just blown me away and have helped shape my eternal mindset. First one is people report, people who've had near death experience, gone to heaven, they report the first person you meet in heaven is you. Yes. there's a reality that, like, wow, I am. And a very important person. I've got so much power. I'm I'm created in all the things we talk about. I'm created in the image of God. I'm actually God's son. reality of who you are is breathtaking. People report. They're like, wow, man, if I had only known who I was. And and how important I am. And then people report that heaven is so real that earth seems like a dream or a mystery. In fact, heaven is the reality. They they see earth, they see heaven, and they're like, this is this is what real this is makes total sense to me. And they're looking back at earth and they're thinking, man, this is kind of a blur. Like I don't even really know what that is. People say that colors and sounds are significantly more vibrant and impressive in heaven. People struggle to explain it because we don't have language to communicate the reality of heaven. 20% of people going to heaven experience a life review. So you've probably heard of a life review, Because time is such an interesting thing in heaven. People report that it's, man, a second was a thousand years, a thousand years was a day. You've heard that from the Bible. And the life review can go on for what seems like years, and then they come back and it's only been a few minutes. So 20% of people have a life review, and here's what they report in that life review. And this is important. The life review is completely focused on relationships. How did you treat people? How did you interact with them? How did you build a relationship with those people? They say what's missing are the accomplishments, the achievements, anything about your career, things that we're really concerned about, most people would say are very important on planet Earth. Scientific breakthrough, you know, like that sounds legit, like particularly if it points towards heaven, not mentioned in the life review. It's all about how did you treat people? Success is measured. in relationships. So how might all this intel shape The way you think about Earth. For me, the eternal mindset has become a way of automatic and quickly showing me what's important. The people I see and talk to every day. That's what's important. The people I'm planning on talking to and seeing, the people I'm serving. This is where our mindsets begin to compound for love. So all the mindsets are going to come together in this eternal mindset. I see that I'm more important than I can possibly understand as the dwelling place of God, which leads to the thought. That others are also image bearers and the housing of God. This leads to treating people not based on their actions, but on their identity. That my fundamental design is to serve people and give my life for others. This leads me to not hold people's actions against them, but to understand the reality of eternity. I have no need to worry because this place is not the final existence. This is just a blur. The reality is a perfect relationship with the Trinity and others rooted in love, much deeper than I could ever know here. This feeds my desire to follow Jesus in every moment, focused on his kindness and on the reality that he is working all things together for my good, for your good, because his eternal plan is far grander than I could ever imagine. I just wove together all 10 of our Jesus mindsets, and the eternal mindset really focuses all the rest. It gives us reason for why. We're behaving in love. How do you get an eternal mindset? How do I work that into my brain? Well First thing is you gotta focus on the reality of heaven. This is where it's so crazy because so much of the things we say, we speak, with the way we talk is only about this lifetime. We've got to meditate on eternity, meditate on heaven, practice verbal, nonverbal, thankfulness for eternity. We've got to keep imagining heaven, put it in your imagination, get excited about experiencing heaven, both then and now, I would propose, because Jesus invites us in the disciples' prayer to ask that his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We actually have permission to ask that heaven would come to earth, the reality of heaven. In other words, think about it. If in heaven you're this really important, significant person and what you do matters, what if you pulled that into this existence and believe that? For for another example, if you in heaven, the reality of relationships and love is so important. What if you pulled that into this existence in the earthly plain and lived like that? The the this prayer that Jesus invites us on, it comes alive for the person with an eternal mindset who understands the reality of heaven and acts as if they're living in eternity right here and right now. Remember, the goal is to program our brains, our flesh. To serve our desires to follow Jesus and love others with automatic and rapid behaviors. The reprogramming requires consistent focus of our imagination on eternity and its reality. And I can tell you, the journey is so amazing to actually increase in the reality of heaven, the reality of eternity, that you're living forever, not then, you're living forever now. And everything you do matters and counts for it. Eternity. We are all on a journey. Each mindset takes time to develop. In the meantime, our brain will still challenge us. It still challenges us. It channels challenges me. What thoughts does the brain give you? You know, these thoughts are just, you know, the judgments are constantly rising from your brain throughout the day. and then our role is to judge those thoughts against the reality of eternity. So we're going to choose to think, speak, and act based on the reality of heaven. So as those thoughts arise that are contrary to the eternal existence, we need to take the thoughts captive as Paul has instructed us in 2 Corinthians 10. Okay, guys, hope this has been helpful. We have a journal prompt for you. Here it is: Jesus describe heaven and its importance. Wow, sit with that one. We're journaling in the first person from Jesus. Here it is again. Jesus, describe heaven and its importance. That is gonna be huge. You could fill pages on that one from Jesus teaching you. And then, Holy Spirit, what dominant behavior pattern of mine is inconsistent with the reality of eternity? have Holy Spirit point out to you where is your thinking inconsistent? And then you're asking him to give you the power to change this. And you have the power. Your power is the focus of your imagination. All the mindsets we're talking about. Is our reprogramming our brain, our flesh to for automatic behaviors of love because we focus on the imaginations of Jesus, the the truth of Jesus, the love of Jesus. When we focus on those things in the present tense, in the past tense, being thankful, being present with people, and then in our imaginations for the rest of the world, That's when we rewire our brains more rapidly. Journaling is is always gonna be the process of thinking and imagining, and it's gonna help us reprogram faster. So guys, I hope this series has been helpful. Would love your feedback. Rob Dayton at 100xlife.com. we will continue thinking about this. I'm focused on developing a book. I'm in the process of writing a book on mindsets. Mindsets are the gateway to all behaviors. Change the way you think, and you will change the way you behave. Bless you. Have a great week focused on the eternal mindset. See you next week.
