Have you ever stopped and considered what defines your life? By that I mean what are you known by, what is your character
Life is very short yet some bad decisions can make life very long. Either way eternity is longer and what we do in this life follows us to some extent into eternity.
HOW WE LIVE MATTERS!
When there is someone that we know who seems to die before their time, have you ever asked why God would allow that to happen to them. Maybe the right question is “why did God let me live?” For what purpose are you alive.
How should we live and How should we die?
Jesus left us with a pattern to follow:
He lived a perfect life so that God could treat Him as if He had lived my sin – so that God could treat me as if I had lived His righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21).
This is the pattern we are to follow – so what is that going to look like in our lives?
We often sing about magnifying Christ. I always thought of that in the same terms as exalt. It finally dawned on we one day that it means magnify as in a magnifying glass. You see most people don’t see the relevance of God – in other words what does He have to do with my life? People have obstacles that skew their view of reality- things like earning more money, playing and enjoying life, living for themselves. Both believers and non-believers can fall into this mode. It is our job to magnify Christ to them. So how do we do it? Number one we have to remove the obstacles out of our own lives so that we aren’t one to others. We call this being a HYPOCRITE. So that by what we say and do people can see Christ in our lives.
Paul explained this in Acts 17:24-27 that the reason God has placed each one of us where we are is so that we might find Him that we sometimes seem as very far away when the reality is He is very near. Kind of like that right side mirror in your car. It says things in the mirror are closer than they appear. Our vision is distorted by SIN. We want to be a clear magnifier of Jesus.
Paul while writing the book of Philippians is jailed and likely to die soon, but his was his observation – that the gospel had reached the palace guard and even into the household of Caesar. All because of the way he lived while facing death. He puts in this way to Live is Christ to Die is Gain. Either way he won.
People must be able to see a difference in those of us who call ourselves by the name of Christ. They can’t be left wandering or confused. God put you right where he wanted – the mission field is right where you live every day. What does this world see in your day to day life.
This is the BOTTOM LINE of my thoughts of to how we are to live:
Love does what it does not have to do to those who don’t deserve it. This is the pattern Christ gave us!
Your life is not to be defined by circumstances surrounding you, but rather your life is defined by how you live in the midst of your circumstance and adversity.
Philippians 1:21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain….27 Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel
sherman
No comments:
Post a Comment