I had actually started Chapter 3 in Don’t Waste Your Life last week and finished it yesterday. I know I have been writing about each chapter I read anyways, but I especially wanted to write about this last chapter because of some news we received today.
My grandpa called today to let us know that his brother (my great uncle), Max, passed away this morning. Now I was not very close with my Uncle Max. Actually, I was sort of intimidated/scared of him when I was little because he smoked. (Dumb, I know, but as a little kid I was not used to that.) I did not think he was, but I asked my mom if Uncle Max was saved; she was not totally sure because he did not live a life characterized by the fruit of a believer. My great uncle was a truck driver, smoked, drank, and just did not lead a very good life. I do not know much about him, but I never got the impression he was saved. Now, we know he had heard the Gospel many times and probably would have said he believed in God, but only the Lord knows if he was ushered into glory this morning.
So in conjunction with my great uncle’s passing away, I thought Chapter 3 came at a very good timing. Now I do not know for sure, but I am guessing that my uncle was one of those people who lived life and took for granted the blessings God gave him of life and breath. Maybe he was one of those people who had these blessings used against him as “evidence of ingratitude” and failing to submit his life to the honor and glory of God, but maybe he did. Whatever the outcome, we need to remember that we need to be living for the sole goal and focus of honoring and glorifying God. A life lived for anything else, a life lived for the glorification and satisfaction of self, is a life lived in utter and complete waste. We need to remember that the life lived for the Gospel and in pursuit of glorifying God and living for Him will not go unwasted.
I wonder…did my great uncle stand before God today and realize that he had wasted his life living for himself? Or did he stand before God and was he commended for living for God?
If that had been me instead of my great uncle who stood before God what would my answer have been? Would God have said “Well done, good and faithful servant”? Or would I have hung my head in shame because of knowing I had not lived my life fully for the Lord and because I had lived in mediocrity? I pray that I would have been confident of living for God’s glory and not my own.
What would your answer have been? Remember…live for Christ with all that is in you. To use the title of Piper's book...Don’t waste your life.
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