Dont Waste Your Life

If I could say one last thing in 08' - if I had a moment to grab the attention of everyone I know have known and will know friends co workers family & associates alike. This would be it:

DONT WASTE YOUR LIFE.

In the coming weeks (at least the next 5) - I will be doing a blog series with this title. My wife and I are currently walking through a bible study curriculum that we will soon be leading in our home. In the first few lessons alone - I've been challenged to do an "inventory" of my life and it's pursuits and -WOW- lotta work to be done. Look out for the next few blogs titled DWYL. I plan to get pretty transparent with my findings, challenges, repentance, frustrations etc.

In the meantime - back to that "last message of the year". I've got a video to share. Pretty much sums it up.

(((Watch the video first -rap is only 45 seconds or so the rest is speaking)))

Toward the end shai posed the question/comment:
How shameful would it be?... he directed it to the concert attendees and kept it relevant to the topic of the music, the hype of the show etc. But if I may - I'd like to dig deeper.

Have you ever thought about this? How shameful would it be?- to have wasted your life attending church services every Sunday(or even sometime), praising God with your lips only to have Him reveal that all along your heart wasnt in it?(Isaiah 29:13) How shameful would it be to have wasted your life wearing the label of 'Christ'ian and have Christ himself declare "I never knew you"..?(Matthew 7:23) How shameful to have wasted your life saying prayers to God - and He never heard you?(Psalm 16:18;Proverbs 28:9)

Some of you have heard me say this plenty of times. "I'd rather live my life like 50 cent or Hugh Hefner than to live trying to be a "Christian" and be deceived my whole life- ultimately ending up in the same place they will" (should The Lord not grant them(50 & Hugh) repentance and everlasting life by grace through faith in Jesus Christ).

I would much rather do my own thing, chase money, women, success, and the likes - and reap the fruit of that life in the after life, than to be "lukewarm".

In Revelation 3 Jesus writes a letter to a church -who quite a few theologians say is a prophecy to the end times church (that'd be us)- saying:

"I know your ways and that you are neither hot nor cold I wish that you were hot or cold but because you are lukewarm I will spew you from my mouth."

So my plea -to professing believers- in 09'. Make your calling and election sure. As shai said "bear fruit in keeping with repentance". Repentance is not a one time deal, where you repented(or as some misconstrue it "asked for forgiveness") and now you're saved. Repentance is a part of the daily Christian life.

Daily Christian living is daily Christian dying. A part of the dying I'm speaking of is the dying of comfort and security and reputation and health and family and friends and wealth and homeland. These may be taken from us at any time in the path of Christ-exalting obedience. To die daily the way Paul did, and to take up your cross the way Jesus commanded, is to embrace this life of loss for Christ's sake and count it gain. In other words, the way we honor Christ in death is to treasure Jesus above the gift of life, and the way we honor Christ in life is to treasure Jesus above life's gifts.

You are not your own, for you were bought with a price, so glorify God in your body - Paul in 1 Cor. 6:19-20

God created us to live with a single passion to joyfully display his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life. The wasted life is the life without this passion. God calls us to PRAY, and THINK, and DREAM, and PLAN, and WORK, not to be made much of, but to make much of Him in every part of our lives.

In closing - I offer up some more of Jesus' words:
'You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of iniquity!’ (matthew 7:16-23)