Welcome back to the final installment of the "What if We..." mini-series. It's been a week since my last blog, and so I want to spend a few quick seconds catching you up on some of the things that have gone down over the past week. This past weekend was race weekend in Speedway, as Nascar's Brickyard 400 was on Sunday. For me, this meant that it was time to drop the keys and get used to biking around town for the weekend. I think that us older folk can quickly forget how much fun it is to ride a bike. You should try it. Go for a bike ride this weekend sometime this week. You won't regret it. Just so you know though, riding and texting is still illegal.
What else happened this past weekend? Well, for starters, I fell in love. Not really, but I had the chance to go to the Taylor Swift concert on Friday night in Indy, and it was phenomenal. It was inspiring. I may or may not have learned how to play the song "Love Story" on the guitar? What? Oh yea, my friends and I also constructed a giant cardboard pencil for fun. Sounds kinda dorky right? Not when you see how legit it is. Check it.
All recycled cardboard and duct tape. Engineering at its finest. So anyways, we will start getting into todays blog topic and that just so happens to be the third and final installment of the mini-series that I have been doing over the past two weeks. The title of the mini-series is "What if We..." and the purpose of this mini-series is to pose three questions that should make you think and reflect on what's really going on in your life. The first week's question was rather challenging and it was "What if We... really believed?" This is a hard concept because we all like to think that we really believe, but do we? For more on that, go back and read the first installment! Then last week, I asked the question "What if We... stepped forward?" This went along with a song that I had written and it challenged people to take their faith into action by stepping forward for Christ. And finally, I am going to end this mini-series with the question "What if We... lived?"
I apologize for waiting more than a week for posting this, but I have been compiling up some research on this topic, and so a lot of what you read on this post will be directly from scripture. With that being said, let us pray for a sense of understanding and wisdom as we read through some of these scriptures, and pray that these words and these verses will do more than simply stick in your head, but that they would begin to transform the way we live on a daily basis.
I want to base the core of this blog around two verses and they are both pretty common ones. The first is Philippians 1:21, and the second is Matthew 24:36. Both verses are posted below.
Philippians 1:21
"For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain."
Matthew 24:36
"But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, or the Son, but only the Father himself."
So I am sure that most of you have probably at some point heard the first verse. If you haven't, then I am so glad that you have stumbled onto this blog, and I ask that you pay close attention to what I am about to say next. Philippians 1:21 was written by Paul, a man whose life was transformed from one of the worst Christian persecutors to one of the most influential disciples of Jesus Christ. As I said before, many many people have heard of this verse. But, what many many people have not heard or really studied are the verses that follow Philippians 1:21, especially verses 23-26. Those verses are:
Philippians 1:23-26
"I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; 24 but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. 25 Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, 26 so that through my being with you again your boasting in Christ Jesus will abound on account of me."
Read that over again. Do you understand what Paul is saying here? We have this mentality that "to live is Christ," but what does that mean? Well Paul goes about answering that in these verses above. He says that given the choice of life or death, he desires to die because that means that he gets to be with Christ (verse 23). However, he knows that God is still using him, and so because of that, he chooses to live. But not just live a normal life. No he says that if he's going to live, it's all going to be about Christ. If he dies, it's Christ. If he lives, it's Christ. Paul knew what it meant to really live.
Did you know that there are over 600 verses in the bible that talk about "living" in some form or fashion? I was going through some of them and here are a few that jumped out to me:
1st Peter 4:2
"As a result, he does not LIVE the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God."
1st Peter 2:24
"He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and LIVE for righteousness; by his wounds you been healed."2nd Timothy 3:12
"In fact, everyone who wants to LIVE a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted."
Romans 14:8
"If we LIVE, we LIVE to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So whether we LIVE or die, we belong to the Lord."
2nd Corinthians 5:15
"And 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."
These are obviously just a few that I picked out, but do you get the common theme that you keep reading? It is impossible for us to live for Christ and the world. In Matthew 6:24, it says that we cannot serve two masters. What scares me is that so many of us either don't understand that, or we don't take it seriously. We claim to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, minds, and strength, but then we are perpetual about living for the World. This is a terrifying concept. And why is it so scary? Because of the second main verse of this blog and that was Matthew 24:36. For no man knows the time or the place of Christ's return. Matthew even goes as far as to say that even the angels, even the Son himself does not know the time. What if Christ came back tonight? Could you stand before him in his final judgement? I know that the bible says that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God," and so obviously no person could stand before God and be without blame, but the bible also on numerous occasions calls us to "live lives that glorify the Lord," and to "wait on his Return." Are we taking advantage of our time?
What scares me the most is that the answer to that question for most of us including myself is a no. We aren't taking advantage of our time. This life is like a blink, and it is 100% true to say that tomorrow is never guaranteed. So when we examine our lives on a day-to-day basis, are we really living for Christ? I don't know what your personal story is, or where you have been in your past. I don't know what troubles you've had to push through, what walls you've had to break down to get to right now. But I do know with all of my heart that if we were to take up the mentality of Paul, that if we were to say "to live is Christ," that our lives would be radical. We would be radically changed, radically loved, and radically saved. And just maybe, our radical lives would spill over into some one else's.
Before you go, I want you to watch this video on youtube. It is 2:24 long and it is so worth it. Watch it. Reflect on it. Pray about what it means for you to live for Christ.
The time is now. So I challenge you: "What if We... lived?"
Buried and Risen with Christ.
Singing off,
JD
