Life is Precious
Life is precious, it is fragile, and none of us knows how long our life may last. “Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise,
making the most of the time…”
Paul is encouraging us to be careful and wise about how we live our life.
Hebrews 9:27 says, “It is appointed for mortals to die once, and after that the judgment.” We get one chance at life and one chance at each day. Once it is gone it is gone forever. Psalm 90:12 says, “So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.” A bumper sticker read, “Life is too precious to waste.”
Tragically the world is filled with the sad and terrible stories of people who have wasted their lives. More than once I have read or seen a story and said to myself, “What a waste of a life.”
Sometimes the climax of a person ruining or squandering his or her own life includes taking the lives of other people as well. Not every life that is thrown away is done so dramatically and in a hail of gunfire. Life can also be wasted in ways that are unseen and incremental, just as termites can eat away at a house undetected for months or years until the destruction and damage is devastating and irreversible. More frequently, a life is wasted an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year at a time. The cumulative impact of our choices over time significantly shapes the life we experience.
“Be careful how you live,” Paul says. The opposite of careful is careless. The Greek here means – “don’t stumble through life, don’t just drift through life.” The word translated “live” can also be “walk” so be careful how you live or walk. Don’t trip and fall. Live as wise people, don’t be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is for your life. How do we make the most of our life? How do we invest our life so that when it is over regardless of our age, we can die feeling we have made the most of our opportunity and that we made the best use of the air we’ve breathed, the food we’ve eaten, and the space we’ve taken up? Making the most of our life begins with understanding that our life does not belong to us it belongs to God. The question is then, what does God want from my life? Reading through the Bible it is clear – God wants our whole life. Nowhere does the Bible teach that we can be a Christian and live our life any way we want. Like the old song, God wants “All of Me.” God doesn’t want 10% of our life or 50% or even 99% – God wants all of you and all of me. Romans
6:13 (NLT) says, “Give yourselves completely to God since you have been given new life.
And use your whole body as a tool to do what is right for the glory of God.”
C.S. Lewis wrote, “The only thing Christianity cannot be is moderately important.” If Christianity is true, it deserves absolutely everything we’ve got.
If it’s not true, we should all be home in bed! The only thing Christianity cannot be is moderately important. It’s either all or nothing. It’s either true and shapes the rest of our life, or we should forget it and do whatever we want.
Some people may say, “I don’t know what God wants me to do.” Deuteronomy 10:12 (NCV) makes it clear, “This is what the Lord wants you to do: Respect the Lord and do what he has told you to do. Love him. Serve the Lord with your whole being.” God wants our whole being and our whole life. Sometimes folks look at their life like a pie – I have my family slice, my work slice, my social slice my golf slice, my finances, my recreation, my retirement and my spiritual life, as if our spiritual life is one slice of the pie. However, our spiritual life is more like the pie crust – it touches every other part of our life.
There are many good things that can push God, the best thing, out of first place in our life. Money, play, hobbies, family, friends, career, maintaining good health – God knows we need these things; God just doesn’t want any of them to come before our relationship with and commitment to God. God says in the Ten Commandments, “You shall have no other gods before me.” Any time we have something in our life that is #1 that’s not God, that’s called an idol. If we put God first in our life, God will help us to align our other priorities in their proper places. Proverbs 3:6, says, “In all your ways acknowledge the Lord, and the Lord will make straight your paths.” Trying to live a part-time Christian life is not the path to contentment. God wants all of us.
What does it take to give our selves completely to God and not to waste our life? What does it take to develop myself to my fullest potential? It’s a word that causes many of us to groan – discipline. Proverbs 10:17 says, “Whoever practices discipline, is on the way to life.” You cannot be a disciple of Jesus without discipline. The two words go together – disciple and discipline. Paul wrote to Timothy (NASB), “Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness.” Discipline is delayed gratification. It is doing first things first, doing the difficult now to enjoy the benefits later. Some of us are disciplined in our work. We plan our day, are on time, and conscientious in our work habits. Some of us are disciplined when it comes to our physical workouts. Others never miss a favorite TV show. All of us are disciplined in areas where we want to be. The things that we get done are the things that are most important to us. Imagine if
we were as disciplined in having a regular quiet time as we are in never missing a meal. Another word for discipline is “habits.” There is a sense in which we are the sum total of our habits. If we habitually tell the truth, we have integrity. If you are habitually faithful to our spouse, you are a faithful person. If you want to change your life, all you have to do is change your habits. Why not develop some new spiritual habits if they aren’t already part of your life.
In 1 Timothy 4:7, Paul, speaking like a spiritual coach, urges Timothy, “Train yourself in godliness.” The word for “train” or “exercise” is the same word from which we get “gymnasium.” Just as there are exercises that help keep us physically fit, there are exercises we can do to keep spiritually fit. One is the discipline of Letting Go. That means being able to let go of things that have happened to us and not holding on to things that only lead to anger, bitterness, or resentment. It also means we learn to let go of things because we can’t keep adding things to our schedule without letting go of something else. Hebrews 12:1 teaches us, “Let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.” We are told to lay aside or strip off two things that hold us back from fulfilling our God given potential – “sins” and “weights.” Sins are breaking one of the commandments of God. A weight is something that’s not necessarily wrong; it’s just not necessary. There are thousands of different weights, and to grow spiritually, we must learn how to say, “no.” We can’t say yes to every opportunity. Often we have to say no to some very good things in order to have time for the best things. The enemy of the best isn’t usually the worst, but the good. If we’re going to make more space for God in our life, we have to cut some good stuff out, not just sin, but good stuff.
So many of our lives are over scheduled and overcrowded so that habits such as a daily devotional reading; a weekly meeting in a small group; and memorizing a verse of scripture each week that may take five minutes seem to be too much. In order to do these things we need to decide what we’re going to let go of. Any time we take on a new activity we should look at our calendar and say, “What am I not going to do?” Any time we take on a new habit or commitment we should ask, “What am I not going to do?” This is true both individually and as a congregation. It is not healthy, wise or possible to keep adding activities, responsibilities or ministries without letting go of other activities, responsibilities or ministries. We cannot do everything. We cannot have it all.
The average person lives 25,550 days. So it’s wise to take a few days to think about and reflect on how we will use whatever time we may have left. People are not equally talented or gifted. Some people are smarter, stronger, more
artistic, scientific, musically inclined, more persistent, determined or emotionally resilient than others, but we all have the same amount of time. 60 seconds a minute, 60 minutes an hour, 24 hours a day. What makes a huge difference is what we do with time. One person observed,
“Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as we make use of. One person gets a week’s value out of a year while another person gets a full year’s value out of a week” (Charles Richards). As we take care of each day, the calendar will take care of the years. Today’s choices and actions will determine tomorrow’s achievements.
Why should we give ourselves completely to God and make the effort to grow spiritually? Why should I let go of some good things in my life to make time for God?
The simple answer to that is because Jesus was willing to give up heaven and equality with God to come to earth as a human being and to die a terrible death on the cross so that our sins may be forgiven, he was resurrected so that we’d know the power of God, so we’d know the amazing love God has for us, and have eternal life that begins when we ask Jesus to be the Leader and Savior of our life. 2 Corinthians 5:15 says, “He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again.”
If you want to make the most of your life and not to waste it, live for Jesus who died for you. Too many people go through life always looking to the next thing thinking that will bring purpose or significance. In the process they miss what God wants them to do and they miss out on contentment. A woman wrote, “First I was dying to finish high school and start college.
And then I was dying to finish college and start working.
And then I was dying to marry and have children.
And then I was dying for my children to grow old enough for school so I could return to work. And then I was dying to retire.
And now, I am dying…and suddenly I realize I forgot to live.”
We don’t want to forget to live.
Prayer: God we don’t want to be casual Christians, part-time believers, or luke-warm servants. Holy & Merciful God, help me to give myself to you completely, totally, & without reservation. Holy Spirit help me to discipline myself & train myself in developing the habits, the disciplines I need to grow spiritually. Help us to let go of things that don’t really matter, & put you first in our life. We thank you that Jesus died for us, help us always to live for him. In your name I pray, amen.