What is the Big Deal?

What is the big deal in your life?  Or should I say big deals?  What are the things that really keep you up at night?  What do you spend most of your time, energy and money involved with?  In other words, what are the problems and pursuits in your life?  These two p's tend to encapsulate the lion's share of our days, do they not?

My question is simple.  Where will your problems and pursuits be 10, 20, or 30 years from now?  Will they be of concern?  Or will they have disappeared into the place where old news tends to go?  Have you ever gone to the library and looked up a newspaper article on microfiche?  You can find reels and reels of newspaper articles about people, places and events that were once important to someone, somewhere.  Unfortunately, microfiche is the only place where they live on.  The people are gone, the events are forgotten and the places are filled with new people with new problems and new pursuits.

Here is the truth: most of us spend our lives on problems and pursuits that won't matter just a few years from now. Don't you think that is true? The trick is to figure out what is really important.  My guess is that if it won't matter 50 years from now, it may not matter so much today.  Where will you be 30, 40 or 50 years from now?  Unless you are a youngster, you will have gone on to your reward by then. 

I hope my life matters.  Don't you?  Won't it be great to hear, 'well done, faithful servant'?  Someone said this once (or something similar): how you live your days is how you live your life.  That is true.  What you do and say and think today is how you are living your life.  Is it making a difference spiritually in your life or the lives of others?  Will it matter years from now or will it be just 'old news'?

God-Pleasers

Do you live to please God?  If you think about the shortness of life, isn't it kind of silly that we live our lives to please anyone but God?  Think about it.  Who am I and what can I do?  Who are you and what can you do?  If I please you, how will that help me?  Neither of us have more than a few years to live.  And neither of us have more than a little bit of ability, strength and opportunity.  We are just finite beings...a vapor that lasts just a short time.  And if I live to please me, how will I enjoy anything for long...I don't even know that I will live to see another birthday.

This is true for every human on the planet.  We are a clock ticking.  Tick-tocking toward the day when we tick-tock no longer.  Heb 9:27 says...And just as it is destined that each person dies only once and after that comes judgment...(NLT).  God gives us just one life and we have no one to fear but him.  Ultimately, we shouldn't fear men.  Jesus said, "I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more." Luke 12:4-5  (NIV)

Think about the worst mistake you ever made.  Who were you trying to please?  Chances are, it wasn't God.  It was yourself, or someone whose opinion you thought was important.  I'm not suggesting that you become callous to the needs of others, just that you put God first always. 

You see, we humans have a natural tendency towards self-promotion.  Call it survival instinct.  Call it ambition.  Dress it up anyway you can to take the edge off the truth: we promote self.  And self feels better when self has the approval of others. 

Yet, God has placed a blessing on us, stating through Paul...there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ.  Isn't that blessing enough?  Isn't it enough that the God of the universe has said, 'today, you are my son (or daughter)!'? 

Do we really have to please anyone else?  Not really.  I wonder why we try so hard.  Who are you living to please?  Is it satisfying?  Are you feeling rewarded and fulfilled?  My prayer is that we would all become God-pleasers.  After all, He is the only One who really matters.