I was in my parent's home yesterday when my cousin phoned from Australia to tell my Dad that his sister Mary had just passed way at the age of 86. In the last three weeks I have also been to the funeral of my Uncle Raymond (86) and Aunt Edna
(76) as well as my good friend Jimmy who was 76.There is one thing for sure, time does not stop and death will come to us all.How then should we live? Read Jesus,read Paul:they will give us good advice! I remember reading the following piece by Jim Packer some years ago. May you be challenged by it as I was.AK
"Be wholly committed to Christ's service each day. Don't touch sin with a barge-pole. Keep short accounts with God. Think of each hour as God's gift to you, to make the most and best of. Plan your life, budgeting for seventy years (Ps.90:10), and understanding that if your time proves shorter that will not be unfair deprivation but rapid promotion. Never let the good, or the not-so-good, crowd out the best, and cheerfully forgo what is not the best for the sake of what is. Live in the present; gratefully enjoy its pleasures and work through its pains with God, knowing that both the pleasures and the pains are steps on the journey home. Open all your life to the Lord Jesus and spend time consciously in his company, basking in and responding to his love. Say to yourself often that every day is one day nearer. Remember that, as George Whitefield said, man is immortal till his work is done (though God alones defines the work), and get on with what you know to be God's task for you here and now" (J.I.Packer, "God's Words", InterVarsity Press, 1981, p.214).
2 comments:
A somewhat paradoxical yet realistic and practicable saying of the Jewish rabbis, "Repent one day before your death," makes a lot of sense to me.
The commentaries joined to this saying inform us quite well enough what is meant: "Repent one day before your death? What does that mean? You do not know your day of death, so be repenting every day."
This is not different than the message with which the good news was inaugurated, "Repent, for the kingdom of God is near."
Thanks again Romanos.
The Eastern Orthodox prayer,the Jesus prayer:'Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner'seems to be in a similar vein. That is, the pray-er has forsaken their own strength and confidence and is totally relying on Christ.I'm sure you have reflected on that particular prayer in your blog and if not perhaps you would write a post on it.
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