Below is a quote from a sermon by Carter Conlon that has changed my life. I come back to it often. I hope it inspires you to live your life with the proper perspective.

“Isn’t a better testimony to get to the end of this life and just say, “It’s been all God, it’s been all grace, it’s been all goodness, it’s been all mercy, it’s been all glory, it’s been everything of Christ and nothing of me. Isn’t it wonderful if you get to the end and whether you’ve preached to ten or ten million, it doesn’t really matter, but you get to the end of the journey and your children say, “Mom, dad, how did such change come into your life, how did you become the person that you became, and at the end of the journey you don’t have a list of books for them to read, you don’t have a stack of proverbs, you don’t have a whole list of how-to’s, you have only one name on your lips, only one victory, only one direction, only one God.”

–Carter Conlon, Lead Pastor, Time’s Square Church

Thoughts?

¹⁰ Obviously, I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant.                                                                                                       Galatians 1:10

It’s hard to go through life not wanting people to like you, to be impressed by you, or even wanting others to envy you. But in reality, not that many people are thinking about you as much as you think they are anyway. My friend Zack Blair taught me this truth when I was asking him his opinion about what I thought others thought about a decision I was making and he said, “Bubba, people don’t wake up every morning thinking about you.” Ouch! Haha! But it’s true!

I’ve heard it said that we spend the majority of our lives trying to impress people we don’t even like and in this case, that don’t even really think about us as much as we think they do.

I was thinking along these lines and the question came up, “What if I lived and died, and nobody remembered me?” Because in reality – regardless of what I do in life, 50 years after I die, nobody is going to remember me.

My conclusion: What I do in life will matter in eternity. Jesus said to Peter that he should have one focus in life if he loved Him: “Feed His Sheep.“  I believe that is God’s call on all of our lives – to point people to Him. That’s it. If that becomes our focus in life – lifting people and pointing them to God -> we’ll be free from wanting to please and impress people and our focus will turn to pleasing God.

“What we do in life, echoes in eternity”

And while people here won’t remember me, there will be people in Heaven as a result of what I did while I was here. They will come up to me and you in Heaven and say, “Thank you for pointing me to Jesus, I’m here because of you.” I’d rather have 1 person tell me that I made a difference in their lives for eternity than 10,000 remember my name in 5 years.

Application? Lift people and point them to Him. Stop caring what people think of you. God will remember what you did for His Kingdom, and so will the people that are in Heaven because of your life – that is all that matters so do what God has called you to do and at the end of your life you’ll be able to say along with the apostle Paul - I’ve fought the good fight and finished my race and to the people I’ve touched, it’ll have made all the difference.

“And we know that God causes everything to work together for the GOOD of those who love God and are called according to His purpose.”        -Romans 8:28

Steps

Get in a Good Church – Once you’ve made the God decision, you need to get in a good church that actually teaches the Bible. Unfortunately, it’s because of the teaching of a lot of churches that we even have to make the God decision. You must know that God is good, He loves you, and He has a great plan for your life.

Surround Yourself with People that Will Give You the Truth -As I said yesterday, getting around friends and family is great, but it’s not enough. As far as surrounding yourself with people – you need to get around people who will speak the Word of God into your life, encourage you, push you through, and enable you to see that there really is a bright future ahead of you.

Take Your time Grieving, But Then Move On – it is perfectly ok to grieve and let your emotions go for a period of time. The problem is people who let it go on for years and years and never move on. In II Sam. 12:15-23 it talks about David grieving over His son while he was ill, but once his son passed away, he went back to normal life,there was nothing more he could do. I’m not saying you forget about the person or won’t miss them, I’m simply saying that you don’t let the emotions take control of you any longer than necessary.  Have people help you through this process…

Be Thankful for the Time You Did Have with Them - So many times we focus on all the things we won’t get to do with that person. “They won’t be at my wedding, see my kids, etc.” while this is true, we never focus on the time we did have with them, most likely because we took it for granted. When you become thankful for all the good times you had with them and all the time you got to spend with them, it really helps you though the process.

Tomorrow I want to talk about the impact the loss of a loved one should have on you….

Thoughts?