Live Life, Like You Mean It!

Live life, like you mean it!

2 Peter 1:1-11 MSG.

1-2., Simon Peter, am a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ. I write this to you whose experience with God is as life-changing as ours, all due to our God’s straight dealing and the intervention of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Grace and peace to you many times over as you deepen in your experience with God and Jesus, our Master.

3-4. Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received! We were also given absolutely terrific promises to pass on to you—your tickets to participation in the life of God after you turned your back on a world corrupted by lust.

5-9. So don’t lose a minute in building on what you’ve been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others. With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature in your experience of our Master Jesus. Without these qualities you can’t see what’s right before you, oblivious that your old sinful life has been wiped off the books.

10-11. So, friends, confirm God’s invitation to you, his choice of you. Don’t put it off; do it now. Do this, and you’ll have your life on a firm footing, the streets paved and the way wide open into the eternal kingdom of our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ.

It was the bottom of the ninth, I was the ninth best player on a team of you guessed it, 9 players in our tiny town,

It was my turn at bat, we were 1 run down, 2 outs with bases loaded.

As I stepped to the plate, the first two pitches went by before I could blink my eyes.

All of a sudden, a sickening feeling started to fill the bottom of my stomach, you know the kind,

you know, the kind that could only be gotten rid of by running and hiding somewhere no one could find you, but I knew that was not an option.

So I made up my mind at least I would go down swinging in the batters box, not from the gallows my friends would latter build for me if I did’nt.

And with that, I closed my eyes and swung hard as I could.

I was startled by a loud noise, It was a miracle,

“Crack” the ball flew way out in center field, the crowd was dumbfounded and so was I.

somehow I had hit the ball farther than was humanly possible that day.

I had hit a homerun, one minute I was a nobody, the next minute I was a somebody.

From a zero to a hero with one wild blind swing of the bat.

No batting coach would ever instruct a player to do what I did.

Anybody who knows anything about baseball will tell you to ‘Keep your eye on the ball.’

They would tell you over and over, whether you’re hitting or fielding. Keep your eye on the ball.

Now while this is only a story that, you might only read in a book or see in a movie

It is the only way to make it in baseball, and its the only way to succeed in life.

You can’t shut your eyes to reality. You gotta keep your eye on what’s going on.

You’ve got to watch what you’re doing and where you’re going.

The boy in the story didn’t try to hit the ball that day; in fact, He didn’t even think there was a slight chance that he could.

It just happened, everybody knew it was blind luck.

There’s a lot of people in this world, living their lives the same way, but we can’t afford to do that in real life. We need to take advantage of the life we have been given, after all the bible says that this life we have been given, is but a vapor.

We’ve got to live our lives like we mean it.

In 2nd Peter, the Apostle talks about the kind of life to lead, that makes a difference.

He says in so many words, You’ve got to live life like you mean it.

What he means by that is, there will be effort but no return. You won’t have anything to show for what you’ve done.

You will have kept the pace, but you won’t have accomplished anything -- at least, nothing worth while with lasting value.

You’ve got to watch what your doing and look where you’re going.