Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Perseverance”
Our Bible verse for today: “I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Philippians 1:20-21 (NIV)
Our thought for today: “Live until you die”.
I’ll admit to being a Jimmy Buffet fan. I like his music. He writes about life on the open sea and at the beach, and about the adventures of traveling. Those are all things that I love. In one of his songs there is a line that goes, “I’d rather die while I’m living than live while I’m dead.”
Yes, live until you die. Really live. Too many people don’t. Far too many people, as they get older, retreat from life. They spend more and more time in the Lazy-Boy in front of the television, or endless hours, day-after-day, on the golf course, on in a fishing boat. What a waste!
I recently read a great article about retirement from Pastor John Piper. It was titled, “Hillary, Bernie, Donald, and Me”. The thing that Pastor John found admirable about Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump was not their politics, but the fact that each wants to spend their 70s performing the most difficult job in the world – that of President of the United States.
Pastor John isn’t running for President, but at the age of 70 he is determined not to retire to a life of long naps and afternoon golf. He intends to continue preaching, teaching, writing, and serving. The structure of his activities may change a bit, but not the significance. He’s not going to waste his remaining years of life on trivial pursuits. Me neither. And I hope you also won’t do that.
In that article John notes that at 70 Benjamin Franklin helped to draft the Declaration of Independence. At 70 the great Bible teacher Oswald Sanders wrote his first book. He then wrote one book a year until he was 89. At 76 Ronald Reagan stood at the Berlin wall and challenged Mikhail Gorbachev to tear it down. At 77 Astronaut John Glenn traveled in space. At 81 Winston Churchill was still serving as the Prime Minister of Great Britain. At 89 Albert Schweitzer was still running a hospital in Africa and at 99, Strom Thurmond was still serving in the U.S. Senate.
Ralph Winter, who actively served in the cause of world evangelism until he died at 84, once wrote, “Most men don’t die of old age, they die of retirement.”
Yes sir, be careful of that retirement stuff, it’ll kill ya. Recently I heard John Piper’s point expressed in a slightly different and very practical way. The man said “Don’t retire, instead rewire.” In other words it’s ok to shift gears, but don’t waste your years.
Regardless of your age, there’s a very good chance that your best years are still ahead of you. Even if you’re 40, that means you have just arrived at half-time in the game of life. You probably still have the entire second half in front of you! I’m a firm believer in the truth that the final measure of a person’s life cannot be determined until that life has been fully lived.
Every day you’re still alive is another opportunity to do something meaningful with your life. I encourage you not to blow it or waste it. Persevere in life. Do all the good you can, for all the people you can, for as long as you can.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 