THE VICTORIOUS CHRISTIAN LIFE: SERVE CHRIST WITH “THE END” IN VIEW
Books, movies, stage productions, tales, short stories, novels, indeed all lives lived upon this earth have one thing in common: The End.
Have you noticed that many movies end with the main character(s) shown moving away from where they had been, and headed in a new direction, like “riding off into the sunset”? Isn’t that pretty much the way it is in the sunset years of our lives?
If you’re anything like the average person, you don’t want to talk about the inevitability of departing this life. A brother of mine was asked if he ever thought about dying, to which he responded, tongue-in-cheek, “Yeah, but I always think of something else as fast as I can.”
In the days when families had nothing better to do after supper than to sit around and talk, inevitably someone would bring up the subject of the end of the world. Theories abounded then as they do now. As a child, I took it all in with eyes and ears wide open, heart pounding, and then mama would have to leave a light on in my room so I could go to sleep. Scary!
Now, After years of studying the Bible … sitting under the preaching and teaching of sound doctrine … engaging in the teaching part myself, it is clear to me that, in these latter years of my earthly walk with the Lord, The Victorious Christian Life is lived in (what some have called) the shadow of eternity”.
Everything we think, say and do at this wonderful stage of our senior adult years is probably thought, said and done considering the absolute certainty that, although we do not know the day and hour, we shall in fact depart to meet our Maker.
A preacher friend of mine posed the proposition: Maybe we ought to live each day as if at the end of the next twenty-four hours we will stand face to face with Christ our Lord, whose only request of us might be, “Tell me what you did in the past twenty-four hours.” So,
How ought we to live in view of the inescapable truth that, for every one, as Peter wrote in his first epistle, the time (the end of life on this earth) is near, the hours are hastening on, the Lord is at hand - I Peter 4:7-11 . . .
To use baseball vernacular, we need to be sure we touch all the bases IF we want to be called “safe” when we get Home. In these verses, Peter challenges Christians to serve Christ with the end in view.
Four Fundamentals ought to characterize Christian service within the Fellowship of Believers:
First, pray with passion. It’s the “passion” aspect of praying that we might need to brush up on. Approaching the throne of God casually rather than with a sense of urgency might not get us to first base. We’ve got to “cut thru the chase” and give God His proper place in praying by recognizing the fact that the Father already knows what we need . . . it is we not He, standing in the need of prayer.
To pray with a sense of urgency due to the nearness of “the end” is to pray with a clear mind (no confusion) and self-control (no stupid stuff). Another way to say it is, “Preserve sanity and sobriety in your praying.”
To “preserve sanity” is to remember what is and what is not important in petitioning the heavenly Father - a good idea to tell God our own needs before launching into the faults and failures of brothers and sisters in Christ . Avoid going off on the deep end, like setting a date for the return of Christ and camping on a mountain top to wait and watch.
To “preserve sobriety” is to take the matter of “the end” seriously yet take it responsibly - engaging in sensible practices as we approach our date with destiny – no need to panic and go off on tangents based on someone’s speculation.
In other words: Just go about your daily activities, meeting and greeting folks, thanking God for each day, asking God: to guide you thru it all, making you aware of opportunities to put in a good word for the Lord . . . to help you be sure your next 24 hours are filled with words and deeds that are pleasing unto God and a blessing to others. So . . .
Pray with passion like your life depended on it . . . like someone else’s life depended on it . . . like the next twenty-four hours will be your last, after which Jesus will ask you to describe your last full day on earth.
Second, love without limits. We’re all familiar with our Lord’s assertion that “when you do a good thing unto one of the least of my friends, you do it unto Me”: We serve Christ when we serve one another with “agape” love - you can be sure that hospitality is one of the surest expressions of God’s kind of love.
Folks, “agape” love always seeks the highest good of the other person in a relationship . . . is demonstrated by actions that back up words . . . often involves sacrifice – likely to occur when we put into practice Jesus’ mandate: “If you love Me, keep my commandments”, or the “Cunningham philosophy”: Do what needs to be done, whenever it needs to be done, for as long as it needs to be done.”
Concerning the truism “love covers a multitude of sins”, it means that “agape” chooses to forgive rather than hold a grudge - an expression of love consistent with the great “love chapter” I Corinthians 13 . . .
Why would Christians, of all people, need to be reminded of the meaning of true love?
Christians are not always the easiest people to live with. Someone observed that Christians at church gatherings can be like porcupines who huddle together to keep warm.
An anonymous bit of poetic sarcasm goes like this:
“They say the world is round, and yet I often think it square; so many little hurts we get from corners here and there, but there’s one truth in life I have found while journeying east and west: the only folks we really wound are those we love the best. We flatter those we scarcely know, we please the fleeting guest, and deal many thoughtless blows to those we love the best.”
Putting those first two fundamentals together, we can say: to pray with passion is to love without limits; and one of the ways we love without limits is: we forgive, just as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven us.
The third fundamental of serving Christ is Give with gladness . . . In the First Century, hospitality was a prime example of giving with gladness.
There were no: motels for missionaries during the early days of spreading the gospel . . . low-income housing units . . . shelters for the homeless. Christians were encouraged to open their homes for providing such.
Rather than complain about having to dutifully practice hospitality, Peter’s appeal to the Church was that they (we) give of their (our) means as a privilege.
The right way to look at giving (sharing) gifts that God has bestowed upon us - physical gifts such as homes, material possessions, daily provisions, resources . . . and spiritual gifts such as God-given abilities, talents and natural endowments – is to consider our use of gifts as opportunities for ministering in Jesus’s Name - in keeping with His command to be faithful stewards of all that He has blessed us with.
To give with gladness becomes even more important when we consider the fourth fundamental of serving, and that is, Serve with sacrifice.
There is really no way to measure sacrifice (loss) of time, energy, sleep, rest, relaxation, not to mention foregoing pleasurable activities and giving up wants and preferences for making sure someone we dearly love is cared for and their needs supplied.
The cost of discipleship takes its toll. Yet, a disciple who prays with passion, loves without limits and gives with gladness doesn’t consider sacrificial service to be a burden at all.
If you love Jesus . . . love others . . . love what you do in Jesus’ Name, it’s a JOY to do whatever needs to be done, whenever it needs to be done, for as long as it needs to be done. Why? Bona-fide needs are being met, God is being glorified!
We the Church are made up of ministers, whose goal is to praise, honor and magnify the greatness of God, whose goodness and mercy have supplied our needs, so that we in turn may supply the needs of others, so that they in turn may glorify God.
Reflecting on “The End” has made us aware of the urgency of our task!
Jesus said: “Be ready for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected time.”
Therefore, we say: “Let us fundamentally live for Jesus 24 hours at a time.”
One day at a time! Amen.
