Pleasing God, Making Disciples of Jesus Christ

Make It Count Starting Today

 

PHILIPPIANS 2:4-5, 19-21 – Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered by news of you. For I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.”

 

THEME OF THE DAY:  MAKE IT COUNT STARTING TODAY.   Before we read on stop and ponder the brevity of life.  I mean really ponder it no matter our age.  Let these words of James and Job sink in and grab our attention.

 

First, from James, “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:13-14).  Did we get the force of the image he uses to describe our lives – a mist?  Picture an early morning dew on the grass or the mist of dawn.  Both are quickly burned away by the rising sun.  And so go our brief lives.

 

Now from the Old Testament character Job, “Man who is born of a woman is few of days and full of trouble. He comes out like a flower and withers; he flees like a shadow and continues not” (Job 14:1-2). Job would add two more vivid pictures describing life – a flower and a shadow.  Both are extremely fleeting and suddenly gone just like our lives.

Okay. Yes, life is short.  Yes, life is fleeting.  We know this about life but what is the knowing doing about how we live our lives?  Well, to drive that question deeper into our hearts and minds, add this serious truth to the brevity of life – For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.” So then each of us will give an account of himself to God (Romans 14:10-12).

 

Fellow child of God, the Lord is going to have us give a detailed account of what we did with our one life He gave.  And in this accounting, it will be based on whether or not we oriented our lives around the two interests in today’s scripture – the interests of Christ and the interests of others.  We are living lives in Biblical contradiction if Christ’s interests which means His Gospel, serving His people, and reaching the lost are not the priorities shaping our lives. In our short lives we are a people on a mission; a mission of love and truth that places self-interests aside for the sake of Christ and others.

 

So, one life.  It is short.  Let’s strive to make it count and to start doing so today by living it for what matters most – Christ and His people.

 

PRAYER: “Father, show me the brevity of my life and the importance of making every minute count.”

 

QUOTE: “We are on this earth not for ourselves but for the interests of Christ and the interests of others.”

 

Because of Him,

 

Pastor Jim