The Lord spoke to me about my core values more than 40 years ago when I was a young pastor, and what I learned then has stuck with me. At the time, I was not thinking 40 or 50 or even 100 years into the future; I was just thinking about the week ahead and my next Sunday sermon.

Yet out of the blue, this sentence occurred to me, and I knew it was from God: “Your end-time worldview will determine your lifestyle.”

The Lord wasn’t delineating to me what my end-time worldview should be. He was simply pointing out that my day-to-day decisions, taken together, would create my style of life. Inevitably, these decisions would be based on my faith.

How would my core values be affected by what I thought about Christ’s return? How would I interpret the Scriptures? Would I view myself as helping to bring God’s kingdom to earth? What might be my contribution to this purpose? What kind of education would I acquire in relation to it?