Daily Devotional for Wednesday August 5, 2009

How Brief our Journey in Life Really Is

(2 Timothy 1:5)

As I have gotten older, each passing year makes me realize all the more how brief our journey here really is. It is only natural that we think about how we might be remembered after we are gone. I don't want to sound cold, but the fact is, other than our family and possibly a few close friends, the memory of our life will fade quickly.

Once we are gone from this life, there is very little left to remind people that we were even here. Some people may be memorialized by having a building or road named after them, others may have their memory honored by having an event named after them, but for most there will be little evidence of this life once it is over. My purpose today is not to discourage you, but to challenge you in regard to how you CAN live on long after your life here is over.

I have often talked about leaving behind the temporal things of this world when we die. How the only thing we will take from this life into eternity is our relationship with Christ. That our works will be tested and much of what we do in this life will be burned up as wood, hay, and stubble. The works that will stand the test of fire are those eternal works. So it is with our legacy, what we leave behind. We leave behind our name, which may or may not continue. The most visible thing we leave is our children, but they too will one day die.

What we do leave behind that will NOT pass away are those souls who will live for eternity because we were obedient to God. Understand that only the Holy Spirit can bring a person to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. However, God uses human instruments to affect a person's life and bring them to that point. Your prayers, your kind words, your acts of charity, your unconditional love for others during your life will live on in that person for eternity!

The point I want you to understand today is that it is never too early in life, or too late in life to impact someone for eternity. It is after all our purpose in this life. Our purpose is to serve and glorify God. Our service to God comes in the service to others. Our service to others has ETERNAL consequences. It is our greatest legacy. It is the part of us that WILL live on for eternity. We live on long after we leave this life, in the lives of those we touch along our journey.

I love you and care about you so much. I pray today that you will take these words and meditate on them throughout the day. This is one of those Devotionals that you should print out and keep with you. We all go through those times in our life when we wonder what it is all about, if it really matters. The answer is a resounding YES! We need to be reminded from time to time that we are significant because God uses us in His plan and purpose to touch other lives at every step along our journey.

I am humbled each day as so many of you share what Liveprayer and these Devotionals have meant to your life. I am so appreciative to God that He has given me this wonderful opportunity to share the love and hope that we have in Jesus Christ with millions worldwide each day. I am clearly focused now more than ever, that the best way I can make my life count, is in serving those the Lord allows me to minister to along the way. It is the greatest way I can imagine to live my life.

My challenge to you today is to make sure you leave an eternal legacy, that you live on after your death in the lives of those the Lord allows to cross your path. Let me also challenge you that if at this moment, you are not 100% sure that if your heart stops beating this very second, you will immediately and forever be with Jesus, then please take a minute now, pray for God to open your heart, and read the words at this link: www.liveprayer.com/bdy_salvatn.html.

I am sure each person who is reading this today has had a special person in your life who has impacted you for Christ. It may have been your mother or father, possibly a grandparent, someone in your family or a close friend, maybe it was a pastor or Sunday School teacher, or it could have been a classmate or coworker.

Let me also share with you that a way you can touch the lives of people is in giving to the work God is doing every day here at Liveprayer. By sacrificing some of the resources God has entrusted to you for His work here, you are reaching people all over the world that you will never meet in this life, but will in Glory!

In His love and service, Your friend and brother in Christ, Bill Keller