Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Do you fear losing something or someone?

What if it is God's purpose that you are to lose everything?  Your comforts in life, the people that you love, your health?


 


Sometimes emotions can't be helped, but at least you can sort out your mind when you have a fear.


 


If it is God's purpose for something to happen, it will happen.  Nothing can stop it.  But if you are His, He will give you the strength to survive and to make it through, either by overcoming or by enduring until the end.


 


Once you have accepted that God really is in control, and that if He wills bad things to happen they will happen, then you can get on with shaping your life with this in mind.  What decisions would be different?  Would you anticipate material acquisitions so keenly, or their loss? Would your focus be on more immaterial, eternal, and spiritual things?


 


If you are not living with your own immanent end in mind, then you will not live as you should.  Jesus could come back at any moment or you could be taken at any moment.  


 


Some might think "at least I won't have to apologise to so-and-so" but really you should be thinking "I should go and apologise as quick as I can, and what is the point in getting upset about this again when I'm going to live for eternity in the joy of the Lord".


 


The balance: should you stop planning for tomorrow?  No way!  Just as God might take your life tomorrow, He might decide that you should stay another 20 years or more! But the length of your life, or the amount of time of possessions (or dear friends/loved ones) in your hand, shouldn't change your attitude.



Friday, December 30, 2011

Obeying God

Abraham obeyed God when he went to sacrifice his only son after God requested it.  Would we make a big gesture like this, to prove our devotion?


 


I don't think this is an ordinary situation, so I would doubt your sanity if you were to try to replicate this event today.  Big gestures are easy anyway.  Or easier.  


 


Giving your life to save someone else is fast and simple, even if it is a huge thing.  How much harder to obey God over the course of an entire life though?  How hard it is to obey when He says to love your neighbour, or not to covet!


 


Easier to give your life in a moment (when heaven awaits) than to struggle with obedience for 50+ years of a Christian life.