Friday, September 21, 2007
Living Well
According to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ will be magnified 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
With everything going on in our world today, we could be really fearful about our lives: I don’t know if I should do that—an accident might happen. . . . I’d better not get on that plane—it might crash. I’d better not get in that car—I might not make it home. . . . I’d better not do this. . . . I’d better not do that. We could live in a constant state of paranoia.
Or, we could commit our ways to God each day and say, “If this is my day, Lord, then I am ready to meet You. If it isn’t, then I will serve You one more day.” As Paul said, “To live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). What a great outlook to have.
But that doesn’t mean we should be foolish and unnecessarily test God. That also doesn’t mean we should do idiotic things like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute. There is a distinct difference between trusting the Lord and testing the Lord.
It does mean, however, that we should accept each day as a gift from God Almighty and live it to its fullest, totally committed to Him. We should live each day as if it were our last.
Let’s just say, for instance, that this day was your last. If you were to think back on this day, would you be ashamed of how you lived it? Or would you say, “I think I lived it well. I did what I should have done. I have no real embarrassment to speak of. It was a well-lived day.” Good. That is how you should live each and every day.
For more relevant and biblical teaching from Pastor Greg Laurie, go to www.harvest.org.
Copyright © 2007 by Harvest Ministries. All rights reserved.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Bible text from the New King James Version is not to be reproduced in copies or otherwise by any means except as permitted in writing by Thomas Nelson, Inc., Attn: Bible Rights and Permissions,