“My purpose is to give life in all its fullness.” John 10:10
PLEASE NOTE: This article was originally published after the Hawaii missile threat in February 2018. Here again, in 2020 we are facing our mortality as we are once again threatened, this time by the pandemic. How you respond will be largely determined by your answer to the question, “Are you prepared to die?”
We’ve just concluded (Feb. 4th) our One Month to Live Sermon Series and… thank God you’re still alive! The purpose of this series was not so much to prepare you to die as it was to prepare you to live, but the recent Missile Crisis in Hawaii does beg the question, Are you prepared to die?
Many discovered they are not. The prospect of death was horrifying. Many panicked! The scenes on the news in the days following were, however, in stark contrast to the scene in the sanctuary at First Baptist Church of Honolulu that morning. Jody and I were gathered with about a half dozen others who were praying and experiencing a supernatural peace and calm.
Medical science is always trying to come up with new medicines and procedures to add years to our lives. Jesus came, not so much to add years to your life, as to add life to your years. He said, “My purpose is to give life in all its fullness.” John 10:10. But there’s another part to that verse…“The thief’s purpose is to steal, kill and destroy. This verse sounds an alarm we’d be wise to heed… Yes, Jesus has a purpose for my life, but Satan does too. His purpose is to steal your passion for life. He wants to kill your dreams and destroy your hope.
Someone said, “Your life is a gift from God. What you do with it is your gift to God.” What kind of a gift are you going to give God with the time you have remaining? Whatever your answer, I challenge you to give it passionately. “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, …” Col. 3:23. Whatever you do be passionate about it because you are doing it, or at least should be, as for the Lord. Tomorrow, when you are doing those little things that no one else sees, remember God sees!
The people who have changed the world the most are not the wealthiest, not the most talented, not the most powerful, not even the most educated. The people that have changed the world the most (for good or bad) are the most passionate. If, as you are reading this, you lack passion, my prayer for you is that you would know how passionate Jesus is about you. I am inclined to believe that when you really begin to grasp how much God loves you, it will free you to surrender to Him completely, to trust Him with your whole heart and to live for Him passionately.
In America today it’s okay to be passionate about, well just about everything, except God. For example a lot of people are passionate about sports. If you watched the Super Bowl recently you saw an example of this; … screaming, yelling, people painting their faces and doing all kinds of other crazy things. That’s okay, if you get excited and root enthusiastically for your team you’re called a fan. But if you get excited about God you’re called a fanatic. I say it’s time for believers, to get excited and passionate about Jesus and live like it. That will go a long way to preparing you to meet your maker.