Phil. 3:7-11

    I've been reading Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper, and in it a particular verse he referenced made me go look it up. I've read the verse before, but I want you to think of this verse differently. Don't think of this as "Wow, Paul was some guy", but think of it instead as "What if I had that passion?"

    My great grandmother died this morning. She was 101, so it wasn't completely unexpected, but we certainly didn't expect it this morning. My mom and brother spoke to her on the phone just last night, when she was joking and speaking normally. This morning, she was dead.

    As young people, sometimes we don't comprehend how short life is. Very few men have died in history expecting to die when they did. No, most walked blissfully unaware, caught up in the everyday matters that begged for their attention, until death ultimately claimed them.

    I have many friends that have joined the selfie craze. Personally, I have only taken selfies to try out camera modes and to ward off excessive boredom. For fun, I once looked up some epic selfies. Here is one that should make my point beautifully but sadly. Look up at that picture up at the top of this post.

    Now, although this isn't a selfie, I found this pic at the same time. This is a picture of a young lady who climbed out onto the top of a suspension bridge to prove to her friends that she was not afraid of heights. Seconds after this photo, she lost her balance and fell, plummeting into one of the cables, dying.

    Moments before, this young lady breathed, had friends, enjoyed the same things we enjoy, talked about the same things, watched the same movies, and read the same books. In one second, her life went from being ordinary to over. She never saw it coming, she never had time to carry out those noble ambitions for her life that I'm sure she had just as we do.

    One day, every single one of you reading this blog will be dead. You may not die in such an epic fashion, and there may not be a viral photo of you from seconds before your death, but you will be just as dead. And every award, accolade, promotion, and prize you've won on earth will be gone forever.

    If there is one thing I want to be able to say when I am on my death bed dying, I want to be able to say this following quote from Paul. I don't want to waste my life. I want to pour my life into following Jesus, just as Paul did! To me, this passage sums up "Living dangerously for the glory of God."

    "For whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him. not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him. and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death in order that I may attain to the resurrection of the dead."