What Are You living for?

I imagine that most of us don’t give this question much thought on a day to day basis. Why? Because we get caught up in life. The busyness, careers, family, paying the bills, and just trying to survive.

All too often we are just going through life trying to keep our nose above water and not get sucked into the chaotic cultural whirlpool we live in. We find ourselves doing what everyone else does. Pursuing the things that we think life requires, but end up in an endless cycle of: wake up – work – collapse – sleep – repeat. It gets kind of depressing . . .

 

My friend Tom Tapping once insightfully observed :

          “Americans work really hard for 35 years so they will be able to

                     live as selfishly as they can for their last 25 years.”

How do we get off this merry-go-round?

My suggestion is that you take time every single day to ask God to give you His perspective about your life and what matters most. How you do this is between you and The Lord . . . but you gotta figure out a way to do it. However, I do know it involves:

     pausing for a moment,

          getting some of his Word in you,

               listening to Him,

Here’s what will happen when you do spend time with The Lord:

• You will see the bigger picture, the things you think are so important – pale in His presence . . .
• You will be strengthened and encouraged and comforted, it’s true . . .
• He will give you strategies for raising your kids, making your marriage better, and getting your life in order – whether it’s your health, your finances, or your relationships . . .
• He will show you what “good” things are getting in the way of the “best” things (knowing of course, that His Kingdom always comes first AND out of that you can be the best parent, spouse, worker, or student . . .)

 

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to come to the end of my time here on earth and suddenly see that all my work, all my effort, all my sweat, was for nothing . . . realizing that I was pursuing things that never did have eternal value.

 

I want my life to count . . . not for my sake . . . but for His Kingdom’s sake. I want my life to point people to Jesus . . . not to me.

 

My hope and prayer is that you will desire these things as well.

 

“Are the things you’re living for
worth what Christ died for?”
                          -Leonard Ravenhill

 

2 Corinthians 5:15
He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.