This past Sunday, looking at Mark 13:32-37, I made the point that Jesus Christ is calling us to live each and every single day of our lives with the following mentality: “Today could very well be my last day here on this earth before I stand before a holy and righteous God.”
Jesus, in Mark 13:32-37 essentially says, “Be on guard, keep awake because you don’t know when I’m coming back!” Also, James, in James 4:13-17, admonishes us to not boast about tomorrow because we have absolutely no guarantee that we’ll even live to see tomorrow. Instead, we “ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that’ (James 4:15).
For Christians especially, this shouldn’t produce fear in us, but rather a deep joy because, in the end, this is a clear reminder that our good, gracious, and loving master, who paid for our freedom with his blood, is coming back (1 Corinthians 6:20; Mark 13:34-36). And because he’s coming back, we want to do everything to please our master and hear those glorious words, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ (Matthew 25:21).
And so, this is a clear principle laid out in Scripture: live each day with the mentality that today could very well be the last day on this earth before we stand before a holy and righteous God.
But the question that inevitably comes up, then, is this: “Does that mean that we don’t plan for the future? Is it wrong to plan to go to college; to get a job; have a family; etc?” Simple answer is no.
Though the Bible is clear that we should live our lives with this mentality (mentioned above), the Bible is also clear that we should plan as best as we can. For example, the book of Proverbs is filled with practical advice about planning (e.g. Proverbs 3:29, 12:20, 15:22, 21:5, etc.).
And so the issue, then, isn’t “Do we plan at all?” – because the Bible is clear that we do. But rather, “After I’ve planned, am I living each day with the mentality that says, ‘Today could very well be the last day here on this earth before I stand before a holy and righteous God?’”
In other words, do I plan with the clear understanding that God can call me even before I achieve those plans? If not, then could it be that we’re living not “to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31), but for our own?
May we live each day in anticipation of seeing our good, gracious, and loving master – who is infinitely more satisfying than even the biggest dreams that we plan.
Here’s a sermon that John Piper preached at Mars Hill Church a few weeks back. In it, he expounds on Romans 8:13 where the Apostle Paul writes, “… If you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” This was quite possibly one of the most important sermons I’ve heard. And needless to say, as a result, I had much to repent of.
Just came across this on the DG blog and felt I had to pass it along. Here’s a quick description from Joseph Randall who posted this blog:
I have a friend, Katie, who serves in Malawi, Africa. She was able to distribute Bibles to a village there, and when they received these Bibles, they ecstatically broke out in thanks, praise, and dance over their new possession of God’s Word! See for yourself:
From the way I see it, we have a choice: We can either (1) watch this video, dismiss it for one reason or another, and move on with our lives, or (2) let these people’s reaction to receiving God’s word hauntus and cause us to ask the question: “What have I filled my heart with so much that this reaction of joy in receiving God’s Word seems so alien to me?”
The New Oxford American Dictionary defines the word hedonism as the following:
he•don•ism (noun)
the pursuit of pleasure; sensual self-indulgence.
• the ethical theory that pleasure (in the sense of the satisfaction of desires) is the highest good and proper aim of human life.
And so as such, the common misconception that people have had of Christianity (albeit a well-deserved misconception) is that Christianity is boring and antithetical to hedonism; that Christians don’t pursue “pleasure” and the “satisfaction of desires.”
Oh, how wrong have people (including Christians) gotten it! If anything, Christians are the hedonistsof all hedonists because we seek after the pleasure and satisfaction that will never fade (unlike the false promises of pleasure that the meager things of this world have to offer.)
Here’s an excerpt from C.S. Lewis’ sermon from 1941, The Weight of Glory:
If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith.
Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak.
We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
In addition, John Piper, in the vein of Jonathan Edwards and C.S. Lewis, offers this far-better alternative to second-rate, worldly hedonism:
Chris•tian he•don•ism (noun)
God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. We all make a god out of what we take the most pleasure in. Christian Hedonists want to make God their God by seeking after the greatest pleasure—pleasure in him.
By Christian Hedonism, we do not mean that our happiness is the highest good. We mean that pursuing the highest good will always result in our greatest happiness in the end. We should pursue this happiness, and pursue it with all our might. The desire to be happy is a proper motive for every good deed, and if you abandon the pursuit of your own joy you cannot love man or please God.
Here’s a video clip from DG to drive home the point:
I am far more hedonistic than you. Something to think about.
