When all is said and done, all that matters is what you have done with Jesus. Your big house won’t matter. Your car won’t matter. How much you’ve accomplished in life will not matter. Almost all of the things with which we concern ourselves are temporary, fleeting, and useless.
Our daily pursuits – outside of what we do for Jesus – are as futile as chasing after the wind (Ecclesiastes 2:11). It’s a sobering exercise to take inventory of one’s life and discover how much of it we live for ourselves, and how little time is spent on things that actually matter.
We’ve got to wake up and realize that one day we will actually stand before Jesus and give an account of our lives (Romans 14:10-12). We will have to explain why we lived the way we lived and did the things we did. He will ask how we spent our time and we will have to admit that we spent it pursuing our own selfish desires, temporal pleasures, and meaningless trinkets. The sad fact is that when the horror of it all hits us, it will be too late to do anything about it.
But there is good news. If you are reading this, it is not too late to change your story. Each of us can begin living today with the end in mind. We know we will have to give an account for our lives, so why not start living a life today for which we will be proud to give an account? True followers of Jesus genuinely desire to walk in His footsteps, but so few actually do. It’s crazy to me how some people will profess Jesus but live like He doesn’t have any claim on their life. Even more maddening is when I live this way. I know better, I desire better, and still I fall (Romans 7:15).
The reality is that we have years of habits and conditioning to overcome. On our own, we have no hope of changing course. It is only through the power of God dwelling in us that we can actually live the life He created us to live. It will take determination, discipline, and most of all, absolute surrender if we want to live a story worthy of retelling to our Creator. Practically speaking, we have to begin living each day with a view towards playing it back for Jesus.
Greg Boyd has written, “If we truly love God, it can’t help but become evident in our life… It’s impossible to participate in God’s love and not have it begin to show in our life.” [1] If our love for God is evident in the way we live our lives – in every way that we live it – then we can be confident the story we are telling is for the glory of God. If, on the other hand, we are living to see how much we can acquire and pre-occupied with ourselves, then I believe we are in for a rude awakening. When all is said and done, only the mission of Jesus matters. What story will we tell to account for our days?
[1] “Servant God”, p.412