Live It Up!

Scripture

 So go ahead. Eat your food with joy, and drink your wine with a happy heart, for God approves of this! 
Wear fine clothes, with a splash of cologne! 
~Ecclesiastes 9:7-8, NLT

Quote

Man is clueless and God is all-knowing: therefore, the only proper response to God is fear and trust.
~David George Moore

There are a couple of things we need to keep in mind when reading Solomon: he is exceptionally bright and he is painfully blunt. Ecclesiastes 9:4, “It’s better to be a live dog than a dead lion!” is often quoted and misunderstood. The lion is a powerful beast, the king of the jungle but a living dog is better than a dead lion. You can interpret this many ways: Homer said, “I had rather be the servant in the house of a poor man than to be a king is the finest tomb.” I think Homer got it right but the oft quoted adage from this text, “I’d rather be a live coward than a dead hero,” is carrying it a bit too far. Some things are harder to bear than death and shame is one of them, but this is not the point Solomon is making. Life is a precious gift to be cherished but it is very fragile and needs to be handled with care. Life is a blessing to be enjoyed but if one is not careful, life can be wasted. We can spend our time worrying about things out of our control. We can fret about a future that is totally out of our hands. The end result is that we squander what time we have by pursuing things that do not matter or worrying about things we cannot control. This is why Solomon encourages us to “Go ahead and enjoy life.”


As Christians, our goal is to free ourselves from faulty worldly thinking. If we allow the world to press us into their mold; we become preoccupied with worry, anxiety, fear, lust, greed, ambition and all sorts of negative emotions which rob us of any chance of enjoying our brief time on earth. Those who are preoccupied with the fear of death don’t enjoy their life. We can find ourselves in bondage to all sorts of things such as bad habits, inhibitions, phobias, hurts and inadequacies. When our mind is set on all these things, we are not free to have the mind of Christ–Who never fretted, worried, carried a grudge, or failed to recognize His Father above or His brother besides. Jesus got everything life had to offer in His brief 33 years.


Let me give you an example: people who think “ownership” instead of “stewardship” worry about maintaining their possessions. Like the rich fool in Luke 12, they are so wrapped up in “keeping all their stuff” that they miss the most beautiful things like has to offer. The rich fool had no vertical recognition: he did not acknowledge the God above him who blessed him with the bumper crops. Not only did his greed blind him to the potential happiness of a wonderful vertical relationship; it blinded him to the needs of others. Look at what the fool missed: [1] No thanksgiving day. There is abundant joy in giving thanks and I would be one sad puppy if the joy of giving thanks were taken away. [2] But He also missed the JOY of giving. The fool could have touched countless lives with the resources God entrusted to him but he missed it all because he was blinded by his greed and preoccupied with the anxiety of keeping all his goods to himself. Folks, listen to me, life is too short to waste time on trivial pursuits.

  • Miracle: I went out to my building last night {Sunday} to work on the blog and did so for more than an hour, then the internet stopped working. I came in the house and found out that June had unplugged it because the CHARTER man is coming today {Monday}. But she unplugged it yesterday: explain that! I can’t!
  • I do love SMALL GROUPS and we have a good session last night. We have a dominant Dan in our group but other than his incessant talking, we have a great time. Yeah, and Big Mama went to confessing my sin last night. I told her to confess her own: she couldn’t think of any.
  • I ENJOYED Senior Adult Day. The LORD blessed my heart through the ministry of Sir Douglas. My sweet grand daughter Josie came to me during the invitation and we danced for Jesus together. It was one of the sweetest moments of my life. I also loved the fellowship with some I haven’t seen in a while. I don’t know exactly what the future holds for me but I have decided to make myself available to serve as interim until they find someone. They have not asked me at this time but if they do, I am thinking about staying a while longer. I love DBC but I also love to preach. I will still get to do SMALL GROUPS and be available to help on Sunday nights.

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