Today’s Daily Light:
After It Has All Been Said and Done…
When I was 6 or 7 years old, my dear mother, gave me a little card that had this inscription on it:
Only one life..it will soon pass…only what is done for Christ will last.
I ‘grazed’ in the book of Ecclesiastes this morning. (Many refer to it as the ‘book of wisdom’). Wow. If Ecclesiastes were not God’s word…I probably would not read it very often because it is such a powerful reminder of the shortness and finality of life and points out how sooo much of what we call life and how we live life is meaningless if it does not have relationship to God the creator. The book repeats and repeats that our time here…is short..this life has definite finality…and then we stand before our Maker. Yikes…the stark reality.
The writer of Ecclesiastes ends his writing with a summary point…the big point…the exclamation point…the summary conclusion of what he wrote about: He says
chapter 12, vs 13 “Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.
Every day, I speak with ‘believers’ whose lives are in turmoil because they have chosen to not take obedience of the principles of how-to-live-life as stated by God in His manufacturer’s handbook to us….and demonstrated to us in the life and words of Jesus-God the Son….and it is like they are almost surprised that if you live irresponsible, or live life against God’s intended grain, that because of some really bad idea or premise, that ‘being a Christian’ has nothing to do with our requirement to be obedient to God..to live ‘for’ God…to love God through demonstration of how we live life…their idea about their responsibility before God, as a Christian, is simply about them having a hoped-for fire insurance policy for the end of times and has nothing to do with a ‘salvation-conversion’ experience that transforms us into a new creation in Christ Jesus where we are driven and motivated to be transformed into what He is. Wow.
Father…I know how rotten the desires of my own heart at are times..how I so easily can get distracted from the main objective of this gift of life and breath that YOU give us. I see how I/we get trapped running on the wheel of pursuing comfort in this life’s activities that bring the illusion of satisfaction, achievement, pleasure…and such is ‘real’…whether money, toys, or just the empty pursuit of stuff….we run with all of our might on the wheel to consume and then we want more. I know I have and do. And none of it every fully satisfies. Only youfully satisfy..now..and into eternity. I do understand that you do want us to ‘fear’ you in the sense that even though you give us the free gift of eternal life …that you do demand that we are obedient to your commands because ‘such’ obedience is demonstration of our love for you and it is what leads us into conforming to your perfect will for our lives. It is simply about accountability related to fruitful productivity. ..which is the opposite of meaningless existence. And there are consequences, some painful and severe, ‘if’ we do not obey your commands. Help us, today, to hunger more to walk with you in how we pay attention to your commands as to how we need to live in this short time that we have on this earth ‘so that’ we can fully become all you want us to become and do what all you desire for us to do. And then…help us to make a difference in the lives of others…that is ‘why’ we are here.
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