Prepare To Die By Living For Christ
By Greg Laurie
In 2011, an inventor presented his idea for a unique alarm clock on the television show “Shark Tank.” The clock, called Wake n’ Bacon, was designed to start cooking bacon just before the alarm went off so that its owner could wake up to the aroma of sizzling bacon.
What wakes you up in the morning? What do you live for? Some people might say, “Well, I just live to live. I take it one day at a time.” To them, life is mere existence. They have no philosophy to speak of, no objective they live for. They just live for the moment. They may even say, “Eat, drink, and be merry.” But that’s a bad philosophy for life.
What Do You Live For?
Jesus told the story of a man who was very successful financially. He had so many possessions that he didn’t have enough room to contain them, so he built buildings to house his stuff. In fact, he said to himself, “You have enough stored away for years to come. Now take it easy! Eat, drink, and be merry!” (Luke 12:19 NLT)
However, God said, “You fool! You will die this very night. Then who will get everything you worked for?” (verse 20 NLT)
One of the wealthiest men who ever lived was King Solomon. Yet he wrote, “I said to myself, ‘Come on, let’s try pleasure. Let’s look for the “good things” in life.’ But I found that this, too, was meaningless. … Anything I wanted, I would take. I denied myself no pleasure. I even found great pleasure in hard work, a reward for all my labors. But as I looked at everything I had worked so hard to accomplish, it was all so meaningless—like chasing the wind. There was nothing really worthwhile anywhere” (Ecclesiastes 2:1, 10-11 NLT).
What are you passionate about? That is what you will live for. Some people are enduring life instead of enjoying it. Their favorite day of the week is someday: “Someday it will get better.”
I read a poll in which 94% of the people interviewed said they simply were enduring the present while waiting for something better to happen. The problem is that you can spend your entire life just waiting. Then death comes, then the afterlife comes, and effectively you’ve thrown your life away.
Only the person who is prepared to die is really prepared to live.
In Philippians 1:21, the apostle Paul revealed what he lived for: “For to me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better” (NLT).
If you were to hear someone say, “To me, living means living for Christ,” you might think, “They have their head in the clouds and are out of touch with reality. They’re so heavenly minded, they’re no earthly good.”
That, by the way, is one of the most ridiculous adages of all time, because I know people who are so earthly minded, they’re no heavenly good.
Being Heavenly Minded
What does it really mean to be heavenly minded? Does it mean that you’re out of touch and don’t care about others? I think it’s the opposite. If you study history, you will discover that Christians have been the ones who led the way in opening great hospitals and universities because of their faith in Jesus Christ.
When you live for Christ, you’ll think of others. And when you’re living for Christ, it’s a practical spirituality.
I’ve met a lot of really impressive people, very godly people, over the years, and the godliest people I ever met were Billy and Ruth Graham. Of course, they were impressive publicly, but they were impressive privately as well.
They practiced Southern hospitality and loved to talk to you and hear about you. They simply were real people. Ruth Graham was quick to laugh and enjoy life. When you’re a godly person, you will be an accessible person, not a self-righteous person. A godly person, one who is living for Christ, is caring and loving, with practical spirituality.
We might describe the apostle Paul as someone who was homesick for Heaven, because he said, “Living means living for Christ, and dying is even better.” On one occasion the apostle Paul had been stoned and left for dead because he had been preaching the Gospel. But his fellow Christians prayed for him to come back to life, and he did.
He wrote about it in 2 Corinthians 12: “I was caught up to the third heaven fourteen years ago. Whether I was in my body or out of my body, I don’t know—only God knows. Yes, only God knows whether I was in my body or outside my body. But I do know that I was caught up to paradise and heard things so astounding that they cannot be expressed in words, things no human is allowed to tell” (verses 2-4 NLT).
Basically, Paul died, went to Heaven, and came back to Earth.
No person who is in Heaven right now would ever, if given the choice, decide to come back to Earth. But Paul did come back. And he later said, “I’m torn between two desires: I long to go and be with Christ, which would be far better for me” (Philippians 1:23 NLT).
When you live for Christ, you’re not afraid to die, because when you believe in Jesus, when that day comes for you to go to Heaven, you’re setting sail for the afterlife. Of course, when we lose loved ones, we’re very sad, because we miss them and wish they hadn’t left us. But when believers die, they’re going to a beautiful place far greater than Earth.
So, what do you live for? If you would say, “For me, to live is money,” then for you to die is to leave it all behind.
If you would say, “For me, to live is fame,” then for you to die is to be forgotten.
Or if you would say, “For me, to live is power,” then for you to die is to lose it all.
But if you would say, “For me, to live is Christ,” then you can say to die is to gain.
The above story is from Greg’s Blog on Harvest.com and published with permission.
Learn more about Pastor Greg Laurie
