Economic With our living standards so high, we are not as motivated to seek a better place in the next life. We can have more money and possessions and comforts in this life by just working harder. On the other hand, to a Christian living in Communist China, living in a repressive and poor country, there is very little additional physical comfort to be had by working harder tomorrow than today, and constant risk of losing everything. Thus, it may be easier for him to focus his attention on improving his prospects in the next life. We are so easily distracted by all of our material and social opportunities in this one that we may be selling our future spiritual lives for immediate gain.
Psychological Humans tend to pay more attention to immediate results than to far-off ones.
That s why it s so hard to save money for the future, to give up that extra piece of cake in order to look slimmer in a few weeks, and to go and exercise to live longer someday down the road. Perhaps the immediate results of conversion are more apparent to those brethren than to us. Perhaps they see much more clearly the vast gulf between their former lives and their new ones. Perhaps they see more clearly how far they were delivered by the gospel of Christ from darkness into light. 2 talks about this in detail.