September 9, 2022

A View from the Hearse

This week I have been digesting Ecclesiastes. I also attended a memorial service for an old faithful saint. Both activities cause me to consider and contemplate my life.   The prescient Mark Twain challenges us to consider that “Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.” I may not have twenty years, but in the years I do have, I wish to do what the Lord desires for me to do.   As I ask myself, What might that be? I consider:    What does the Lord require of me; But to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with my God.  Micah 6:8  Blessed are the….for they shall…. Matthew 5:3-11   Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Romans 12:2   As I ask myself, Why do it?  I consider:  Ecclesiastes 12:14: For God will bring every act into judgment, everything which is hidden, whether good or evil. 2 Corinthians 5:9-10:  Therefore also we have as our ambition, whether at home or absent to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done whether good or bad.    We translate our lives as we live them out toward people, but we transform our lives as we live in the sight of Jesus. Life is a gift and a stewardship from the Lord. He desires for us to invest it wisely. Therefore, as Stephen Covey reminds us; “Anything less than a conscious commitment to the important is an unconscious commitment to the unimportant.   So, I ask myself, what is important?   Serving Him with you until He comes for us, Fred