The Interval
The Brief Window That Shapes Your Eternal Soul
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Free Companion Resource: An 8-week discussion guide with deep-dive questions and practical exercises for small groups. Download at intervalbook.com →
ISBN: 979-8-9941752-0-0 (Paperback) · 979-8-9941752-1-7 (Hardcover) · 979-8-9941752-2-4 (eBook)
From the book
The contents and the whole Introduction
The contents page and the whole of the Introduction, all nine pages exactly as they are set in the printed book. Choose a page, and click it to read at full size.
You are becoming someone. And who you become, you carry into eternity.
Most of us were taught that the Christian life is about getting saved and then waiting for heaven. So we wait. We go to church, we try to be good, and somewhere underneath we carry a quiet fear that our ordinary days don't count for much: that the dishes, the commute, the unseen kindnesses, the faithfulness nobody notices will all be swept away when eternity begins.
The Interval says the opposite is true.
Eternal life has already begun. The years between your conversion and your death are not a waiting room. They are a forming room, limited and closing, where the clay is still soft and the soul you will carry into eternity is taking shape right now. Nothing is wasted. Every hidden act of faithfulness is recorded in a ledger God keeps, and one day He will bring it into the light.
What you do matters. Who you become matters more. And the two are inseparable.
In these pages you'll discover:
- Why the "waiting room" view of life is a fallacy, and what Scripture teaches instead
- How the self that dies is the self that rises, transformed but recognizable
- What Jesus meant by treasure in heaven, and why it is not a metaphor
- Why Scripture speaks of differentiated reward, crowns for specific faithfulness, and glory that differs as star from star
- How to stand before God's evaluating gaze now, voluntarily, so you never meet it as a stranger
- Why none of this is works-righteousness: salvation by grace, formation by cooperation, reward by faithfulness
This is not a call to anxious striving. The grace is sufficient. But the window is brief, and what takes shape in it is what you keep.
Drawing on Scripture, the church fathers, and modern voices like C.S. Lewis, Dallas Willard, and N.T. Wright, Jarred Fenlason, D.Min., makes the case that the most important years of your eternity are the ones you are living today, and shows how to live them so that you arrive not only forgiven, but formed; not only home, but welcomed with the words every believer longs to hear.
The stakes are eternal. The grace is sufficient. The time to begin is now.
Learn more: Read our article A Reader's Guide to The Interval and Its Key Ideas — degrees of reward, the Bema Seat, and the book's key terms.
About Jarred Fenlason
Jarred Fenlason, D.Min., is a writer and teacher whose work focuses on spiritual formation and the eternal weight of the Christian life. He holds a Doctor of Ministry from United Theological Seminary and lives in Moravian Falls, North Carolina, with his wife, Rochelle.
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