Grace For The Journey

    The online encyclopedia Wikipedia defines the “good life” as “a philosophical term, originally associated with Aristotle, for the life that one would like to live.”  The world of marketing and advertising has many definitions for the “good life,” all of which revolve around the stuff of this world:

• Expensive new car.
• Expansive home in a nice neighborhood.
• Fancy clothes.
• Fantastic marriage.
• Trouble-free children.
• Well-paying job with room to climb.
• Influential social circle.
• Enough money not to work.
• Lying on the beach sipping a cool drink.

I’m sure you could add to the list of all the “more” that the world tells us we need in order to live “the good life.”

The problem with looking for this good life, as the world defines it,

Is that when and if you find it, it never delivers what it promised.

As a pastor, I get to work with a lot of men.  Many of them have achieved what the world would call the “good life,” yet many of them are still not satisfied.

Last year, I preached a series of messages from the Book of Ecclesiastes.  The author, who was King Solomon, had amassed great wealth and possessions . . . everything he could possibly imagine under the sun that would comprise “the good life.”

He states in Ecclesiastes 2:7-11, “I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces . . . I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem . . . And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.”

Here is a question to consider:

When you get

Everything you want

And you are still not satisfied,

Then what?

The answer to that questions is

Jesus plus nothing

Equals everything;

Everything minus Jesus

Equals nothing at all!”

How would you define the good life?   What would make for a satisfying life, one marked by meaning, significance, and purpose?   Let me suggest that a change in vocabulary would be profitable for all of us.

Instead of focusing

On the proverbial “good life,”

We should be focusing

On the “grace life”

That naturally flows

Out of an intimate,

Personal relationship

With Jesus.

You see, the grace of the Gospel changes our perspective about the “good life.”

Gospel grace opens us up

To understanding the truth

That the Giver is more important

Than the gifts He gives.

Now, I know there are countless gifts the Giver gives to those who are His children and they are indeed good gifts.  He loves to give good gifts to His children; what good father doesn’t?

But God never intended

For His children

To find more meaning . . .

More pleasure . . .

More happiness . . .

More satisfaction . . .

More life in the gifts

That were given,

Rather than in the Giver

Who so graciously gave them.

We need to remember that the greatest gift God has given is Jesus (John 3:16)!  To be sure . . .

There are great rewards

To being in Christ,

But none of them

Are better than Christ Himself.

Christ brings great change in the life of everyone He saves – Wounds get healed . . . Alcoholics get sober . . . Drug addicts get clean . . .  Angry people get calm . . . Pharisees get grace.  I could go on.

Yet, if we focus more

On the change

Than we do

The Changer,

We miss

The greatest portion

Of what Jesus gave us:

HIMSELF!

Make Jesus your definition of the “good life;” pursue Him will all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

This is God’s Word For Today … This Is Grace For The Journey

Rest and Rejoice in this eternal truth!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”