New Years Resolution... "Live Life Like You Were Dying"

New Years Resolution...

"Live life like You Were Dying"

2 Peter 3:10-11 MSG

But when the Day of God’s Judgment does come, it will be unannounced, like a thief. The sky will collapse with a thunderous bang, everything disintegrating in a huge conflagration, earth and all its works exposed to the scrutiny of Judgment. Since everything here today might well be gone tomorrow, do you see how essential it is to live a holy life? Daily expect the Day of God, eager for its arrival. The galaxies will burn up and the elements melt down that day—but we’ll hardly notice. We’ll be looking the other way, ready for the promised new heavens and the promised new earth, all landscaped with righteousness.

When that day happens will you be ready for it?

There was a song...that Tim McGraw had a hit with a few years back

and it was called "live like you were dying" and it went a little like this

Illus.

He said I was in my early 40's,

With a lot of life before me,

And a moment came that stopped me on a dime.

I spent most of the next days, lookin' at the x-rays,

Talkin' 'bout the options and talkin' 'bout sweet time.

Asked him when it sank in, that this might really be the real end.

How's it hit ya, when you get that kind of news.

Man what ya do.

And he says,

I went sky divin',

I went rocky mountain climbin',

I went 2.7 seconds on a bull name Fumanchu.

And I loved deeper,

And I spoke sweeter,

And I gave forgiveness I've been denying,

And he said someday I hope you get the chance,

To live like you were dyin'.

It seems as though the song says, that people always put off a lot of things…

And they say one day I'll do this..

Someday I'll start to do this differently..

When I get older...i'll start living for the Lord and

doing all the things I know I'm supposed to be doing now

Let me tell you this…

No one..on their deathbed has ever said...

I wish I would have made more money..

And I have preached a lot of funerals for a lot of people

and I can tell you no one has ever took it with them to eternity..either

No..everyone always wishes they would've done more things for good

and spent more time with the ones that they love the most

and the ones they hold dear to there heart.

And I've always heard people say I wish I would've done more for the Lord

Never one time...have I heard someone say I wish I would've done less...ONLY MORE!

So my question is… Why don't we do more?

Why do we wait?

Why don't we "Live" the life that God has planned for us now?

Romans 1:16-17 MSG

It’s news I’m most proud to proclaim, this extraordinary Message of God’s powerful plan to rescue everyone who trusts him, starting with Jews and then right on to everyone else! God’s way of putting people right shows up in the acts of faith, confirming what Scripture has said all along: “The person in right standing before God by trusting him really lives.”

Illus.

“The most unhappy person in the world is not someone who didn’t get what he or she wanted. The most unhappy person is the one who got what he or she wanted and then found out that it wasn’t as wonderful as expected.

The secret of a happy life is not to get what you want but to live with what you’ve got. Most of us spend our lives concentrating on what we don’t have instead of thanking God for what we do have. Then we wake up, our life is over, and we missed the beauty's of the present. You think about that.”

It's a battle of the wills...and for whatever reason

our flesh almost always chooses our will...

and usually we win the battle only to wind up losing the war...

1 John 2:15-17 MSG

Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him.

The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity.

You see...God says I have abundant life for you..if you will only TRUST ME!

John 10:6-10 MSG

Jesus told this simple story, but they had no idea what he was talking about. So he tried again. “I’ll be explicit, then. I am the Gate for the sheep. All those others are up to no good—sheep stealers, every one of them. But the sheep didn’t listen to them. I am the Gate. Anyone who goes through me will be cared for—will freely go in and out, and find pasture. A thief is only there to steal and kill and destroy. I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.