Have you used your life well?
As you look back in the years you have spent, have you concluded you used yours well? Have you been a good steward of the life that has been given you? How much life do you have left?
How long will you live? The bible says 70 to 80 years if we do not experience some type of hardship (disease, accident, etc.)
"Our lifetime is seventy years or, if we are strong, eighty years. But the years are full of hard work and pain. They pass quickly, and then we are gone. Teach us how short our lives really are so that we may be wise." (Psalm 90:10, 12NCV)
Another version says it this way: "Our days may come to seventy years,
or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away. Teach us to number our days,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom." (Psalm 90:10, 12 NIV)
If you are a bible student, you've read Jesus's parables of the talents. Stories of a master giving money to his Stewards and told them to handle it well. He returned and blessed the good ones and cursed the bad ones ...
So what are our talents that God has entrusted to us?
. Our talents include grace, a commission to make disciples
. We are given gifts, skills and possessions
. We are given health - everybody is born within a few pounds
. We are given time, today, children, friends, jobs, money, comfort, etc.
. We are given mercy, patience, God's pursuit of us - are we responding?
As you start a day, do you really think of it as a commodity? I know people who have lost their spouse, their children and are terminally I'll. I'll bet if they had to do it over again, they would be a better steward ...
LORD - as your word says, "teach us to number out days. We have valuable talents, it is our parents, our spouse, our children and we may only have them for a brief time. I see so many people dying young to our standards - they are all around me. Help me be a good steward. And I if I am faithful in the small things, you will bless me with greater ones. You will return one day and ask "What have you done with what I have given you?" May you be able to say of me - "good and faithful servant" - IJNIP amen
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Created about 1 year ago
