“He who dies with the most toys, wins.” (Quote attributed to Malcolm Forbes and popular bumper sticker)
“For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” (Matthew 16:25)
Good morning friends and warriors. I once read a story about an old man who had been hardened by life. A local church had been praying for this man for years – decades in fact. But he was totally resistant to the gospel of Jesus Christ. To everyone’s amazement one night, he walked into a revival service and sat in the back pew. After the conclusion of the service, he walked forward, prayed with the evangelist, and was miraculously transformed by God’s love.
But what happened next within earshot of some of those who had been praying for him, was the part of the story I most remembered. This hard man broke into tears and sobbing as he said, “I’ve wasted it. I have wasted my life.” His realization that he had spent his life chasing after other things when he could have been living for Christ and bearing eternal fruit all those years was a profound regret.
Yet, the world tells we should be striving to accumulate things or as the popular beer commercial of the 1970’s implored us, “You only go around once in life, so you’ve got to grab for all the gusto you can.” Jesus’ answer to these banal platitudes was, “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?” (Luke 12:20)
We have spent considerable time in this space talking about how we use our time. Let’s face it! How we spend our time says much about us. My challenge for you this day is this:
Would you take just one day and track your use of discretionary time? You may be surprised at how you use it. For example, if you call yourself a child of God, how much time did you spend in His word as opposed to such things as watching trivial and meaningless entertainment? How much time did you spend in prayer as compared to playing video games on your computer or phone?
Will you, like the old man in the story, look back at your life and say, “I’ve wasted it!” My prayer is that you will not have to face the Lord of lords and explain why you binge watched Game of Thrones while ignoring His word and His service. What’s your prayer today?