Today is Important, Count It!

I live in an old house and on an old home place. There is a barn on my property that is over a hundred years old. It is made of logs and one can still see the marks of the axe that hued the timbers. It is full, no doubt, of forgotten memories of the people that once walked through it and worked around it. There are laughs and tears, hurts and happy moments that are now lost and forgotten forever. Days, which at the moment, seemed more important than anything in the world. Yet, time came and is erasing each as if they never happened. Days that were numbered, used up and then lost forever.

 

Psalm 90 is a psalm ascribed to Moses. It is the only Psalm definitely credited to him.

He apparently wrote the words at or near the end of the forty-year wilderness trek just prior to his death. He has watched Israel, those twenty and older, die along the way. Possibly over a hundred everyday may have slipped into eternity. Moses, in watching this realizes that they average around 70 years on the earth and 80 if they were strong enough. It is with this realization that Moses prays and ask God to teach us to number our days and apply wisdom to our hearts concerning the time we have on this earth.

 

The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath. So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Psalm 90:10-12 KJV

 

Of this scripture Spurgeon penned:

Count how many days have gone. Will not the time past suffice us to have wrought the will of the flesh? You cannot tell how few remain, but still, if you live to the longest period of life, taking that for granted which you may not take for granted, how little remains! Oh! that we might by the shortness of life, be led to apply our hearts unto wisdom, so as to live wisely. And what is the best way of living wisely, but to live in Christ, and live to God?

 

God, teach us to number our days! It is important for individuals to number their days and make the most of the years they have on earth for the glory of God.

Since the Israelites wandering in the wilderness died relatively young for their time, it seems reasonable to think that they probably were not aware of their approaching end. In other words, death had a tendency to slip up on them and catch them off guard. Consequently, they missed how important it was for them to recognize the significance of each day of life.

Each day was a blessing – an event to be numbered with gratitude but they failed to see that.

 

It is a wise person that will number their days and use them to prepare for eternity and produce something that will touch tomorrow. Numbering our days is not always a happy task. It is often filled with nostalgia, melancholy and memories that have sad reflections. Some people convince themselves that there is plenty of time to think about the end of life, to deal with eternal issues.

The rich fool procrastinated dealing with the state of his life and was only concerned with building something greater for himself. Scripture calls him a fool because that night his days were finished. (Luke 12:16-21)

It is a wise person that set priorities and refuses to ignore the urgency of today and counting their days while considering the importance of eternity.

 

“Every morning you are handed 24 golden hours. They are one of the few things in this world that you get free of charge. If you had all the money in the world, you couldn’t buy one extra hour. What will you do with this priceless treasure? Remember, you must use it, as it is given only once. Once wasted, you cannot get it back.”

 

Before I plan my days I want God to write His plans upon my heart. I will number my days well when I trust God for the details. Numbering well happens when I open His Word and listen to Him speak through the pages. It happens when I pore out my heart in prayer. It happens when I lift my heart in worship and thanksgiving.

 

Much of what will fills our calendar are daily tasks of little consequence. A year from now, they’ll be forgotten. But when we yield our day to God, when we allow Him to work in us however he chooses, the mundane can become divine. Numbering our days aright isn’t accidental. It begins with a choice, a choice to seek God first. Perhaps that is the first thing you should write on your calendar for tomorrow, no, start it today.

 

Review yesterday prayerfully and honestly.

Encounter God before encountering the day.

Schedule time to spend studying your Bible.

Turn each calendar entry into a prayer.

Ask Jesus to help you see His opportunities each day.

Touch something regularly that will outlive you.

Don't Lose Your Saltiness

In Matthew 5 Jesus uses three examples of the power of our wittiness, connected to the actions of our life. The Christ-like life is compared to a city set on a hill that cannot be hid. It is compared to a light not placed under a covering but on a high place, a lamp stand, so that it may give light to all in the house. Jesus is teaching this is His Sermon on the Mount.

 

Yes, I believe that it is of utmost importance that we live such a visible life. I believe that we must present ourselves in such a way as to show those around us the way to Jesus. We cannot hide the Christ-like-life! Yet, before Jesus ever mentions a city set on a hill, before He ever tells of a light on a stand, He tells of the importance of keeping our seasoning. All the display in the world will not be effective if the taste is bad or even bland. Before you can ever have an effective visible life, there are some personal actions that will have to be lived right if one is to become that city on a hill a lamp on a stand.

 

Matthew 5:13 says, “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.” NKJV Both Mark and Luke reiterated this again in this fashion.

 

"Salt is good; but if the salt has lost its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is neither fit for the land nor for the dunghill, but men throw it out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!"   Luke 14:34-35 NKJV

 

Your ability to season (Salt) a circumstance is a God given ability.

The way you live your life can drain your anointing out and cause you to lose your dreams and visions. The way you live your life can cause you to become a wore-out, dried up soul with not even a smile to give. The way you live your life can cost you the chance to win that soul you are reaching for and touch that life you want to see come to God! The life could be a family member and someone you really love. We don’t live just for ourselves. We don’t just walk through this life alone. We have a lot of other people’s emotions connected to our life. These people know about our flavor or seasoning. Understand you can become so caught up in life that you lose your anointing and your tenderness, you lose your smile and your laughter. You can become dry like path dirt (trampled underfoot by men).

 

You can’t allow life to take from you your love and patients. 

You can’t let life have your mild mannered ways and your self-control.

You can’t allow life to cause you to grit your teeth and keep you frustrated.

You can’t allow life to take your peace and confidence.

You can’t let life take your joy, your gentleness and your contentment.  (Read Galatians 5:22)

 

A well-lived life is an ongoing journey!

Some people only live their life in a someday mode. Always looking to what it might be someday and never living in the day that God has for them at the moment. A well-lived life is an ongoing journey, what is happening now will touch a lot of my tomorrows and how I respond today will change relationships possibly forever. A well-lived life is characterized by many things. It has many elements to it that in their right place make for a well-lived life. Learn to live life with and through:

 

Excitement – Life is not all fun but some of it had better be. There needs to be a certain amount of excitement and longing expectation in your life. You need to feel that, “I just can’t wait” feeling every once-in-a-while. You are never too old for excitement. If you think you are you’re on the road to becoming a bitter boring old person.

 

Adventure – Take a walk in a new direction. Do something you have never done before. Lose your excuses that are telling yourself, you have always done it that way. Try something new. Take a step into the unknown. Adventure will take you out of the status-quo mode. There is nothing like adventure to put excitement in your life.

 

Success – Live life so it can produce right. Life has to have success but success comes by planned living.  Prepare and live so that you can have accomplishments. Stop living to just exist, stop floating in the amiss of life, stop living to just get through another day. Catch a reason and make it produce with the talents God has given you. Nothing brings adventure like success; it causes you to want to take another step.

 

Challenges – There is no such thing as a well-lived life without challenges. Another word for challenges is trials. Challenges make you try harder and pray more. Don’t every live or think like you will not have test if you get it all together. Life has challenges; life has trials, work on them and fix them. There is nothing like a challenge to bring you sweet success.

 

Problems – Even a well-lived life will bring you problems, its part of the process. You can’t live perfect enough not to have problems. You are not the only one having a problem nor are you the only one having your problem. Yet, you can’t allow problems to make you unstable. If you go to pieces every time something goes wrong you will lose your ability to season life and people will stay away from you and you will become gritty path dirt. There is nothing like a problem to give you a fresh challenge.

 

Struggles – Again expect hard time, plan on dealing with them. Struggles often last a long time sometimes a lifetime.  There is no such thing as a life without struggles. Lose the day-dream that has you always wishing for a perfect life or a life without needs and struggles. That only happens in fairy tales. You will have bad days you will have struggles. Apostle Paul, after listing many things that were struggles in his life makes the statement, “But none of these things moved me.”  Don’t allow bitter times to make a bitter life. You cannot lose your ability to season the life you are living.

 

There is a big difference in the last three. Challenges are often for the moment. Problems often soak up or weeks and months. Struggles are the touches of life that sometime we carry a long time. How we deal with these will say much about how well we are seasoning life.

 

Life is swifter than a weaver’s shuttle Job said, so you have to slow down long enough to check you life’s vital signs. We are all better at this than we would like to admit.

We know when something is not right. We know what we should be doing to make a difference. You’re smart, you know what you are doing, you know what to do. The real issue is whether or not we are willing to pull out of the fast lane long enough to find out what’s going on with our life and fix what we know we need to fix.  Jesus preached and said that His children were to be like a light on a stand, a city on a hill but also like salt that didn’t lose its ability to make life taste better. I ask you, can anyone even tell you have walked through this life? Does anyone even know you have been here? Or are you like a salt-less cracker dropped in a boiling pot of soup that just dissolved and no one knows it was there. Don’t lose your saltiness.

God Loves Sacrifice

One thing that comes to mind when I start making a list of what the Almighty loves is sacrifice. Throughout time and scripture over and over God showed He loves and responds to sacrifice. He is still moved today when people open up their life and go into the realm beyond themselves and give. When someone offers up to Jesus a sacrifice whether it be praise (Hebrews 13:15), prayer (Psalm 141:2), financial (Mark 12:41-44) or time (Romans 12:1), The Almighty responds. God loves sacrifice!

 

When people give themselves totally to God, not holding any part back, God moves on that sacrifice in a great way and consumes the offering with His presence and anointing.

In Leviticus 9 when Israel offers the first sacrifice on the altar of God the Bible says there when out a fire from before the Lord and consumed the sacrifice.

 

God loves it when His people go beyond the bounds of the normal in their life and give to God that which cost them. When people sacrifice God always moves. The Lord wants to move on lives. He wants to touch and bless, bring joy and peace, save and deliver. All God is waiting for is us to give up with a willing heart and go past what is convenient in our living for Jesus.

 

A beautiful example of what happens when one pushes past the norm of their life in found in 1^st Kings 18. In this story of Elijah confronting the prophets of Baal, God showed how much He loves sacrifice. The challenge that the prophet issues and the willingness to meet and stand up for the Almighty, took Elijah out of his comfort zone. The sacrifice that day started with Elijah showing up with the whole kingdom of Ahab looking to kill him. He tells the king to meet him on Carmel and the God that answers by fire let Him be God. The Almighty must have stood up off the throne that day when Elijah laid it all on the line. His life and his confidence in God, Elijah gave it all.

 

When you get to the last third of the chapter you find the prophet of God rebuilding the altar and putting the sacrifice all in order. Seeming to want to prove the wonder and power of God the prophet has gallons of water pored over the sacrifice. Again the water its self was a gift beyond the normal. They were in a three and a half year drought. There is no telling what Elijah had to pay for the water. Yet, on that day when the prophet of God stood seemingly against the world and gave it his everything the consuming fire of God fell. The fire came and took the sacrifice.

 

The fire didn’t come for the altar. The fire didn’t show up for the wood. The fire didn’t fall for the water. The fire of God fell for the sacrifice. The beautiful thing was when the fire of God showed up for the sacrifice, it consumed the wood, and it consumed the water and consumed the rocks of the altar. When the fire of God found the sacrifice it consumed everything else involved.

Everything was touched because of the sacrifice!

 

When someone will step towards God and give it all up and say not my will but Yours be done, the powerful anointing of God will consume the life. It is for this reason the blessed keep being blessed. If we need the Lord to touch every part of our life we have to realize it starts with sacrifice. Yet, when we offer a sacrifice to God with a pure heart everything about our life will get touched.

 

I don’t know about you but I need Jesus consuming every part of my daily life. So, I will continue to present my life a living sacrifice. I want the spirit of David that says, “I will not offer to my God that which cost me nothing (2^nd Samuel 24:24).  I challenge you to do the same and see what God will do as He consumes the sacrifice of your life. Because the Almighty loves sacrifice!