God has given you this one life to live for Him. What are you doing with such a wonderful gift? Are you spending it honoring Him, using every moment to glorify Him? Or are you squandering the precious little time afforded to you in selfish and self-glorifying ways? How you live your one life will dictate where you spend eternity (Galatians 6:7–8).
Looking back over my life, it’s nauseating to see how much time I let slip by and how many opportunities I didn’t seize to make much of Jesus. I think that’s true for most of us. As we mature in our faith, we can’t help but look back sometimes and grieve over the wasted hours and years. We can do nothing about the life that has passed, but we can live the rest of our days in better and more faithful obedience to our King.
You say you love God, but when you love someone, you make every effort to spend as much time as you can with them. All you can contemplate are the ways you can please, serve, and honor them. Remember the first time you fell in love? There were not enough hours in the day to spend with that person. Nothing else mattered anymore, and you could only think about the one with whom you were falling head over heels in love. Do those same emotions drive your affection towards God? Is He the One you seek to serve above all else (Deuteronomy 6:5)? How much effort are you putting into spending time with the One you claim to love? You have but your one life to get this right.
As you go throughout your day, is your first thought always about how you can please Jesus or yourself? We all know what the answer should be, and we all know what the truth is for us. In this life, you will either live for yourself or you will live for Christ. You cannot have it both ways (Matthew 6:24). You either love yourself and your stuff or you love Jesus and His Kingdom (1 John 2:15–17). Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, but few will surrender to live the life that leads to eternity with Him (John 14:6). He is the door, but the path to that door is narrow with few willing to walk it (Matthew 7:13–14; John 10:9).
The goal of your one life is to become nonexistent. Our life is not our own (1 Corinthians 6:19–20). It’s all about Jesus. We do nothing for self and everything for Him (Colossians 3:17; Colossians 3:23–24). We took the life we were living and sacrificed it on the altar of the Lordship of Christ, dying to our sin (Romans 12:1; Romans 6:6-7). Because we died to sin, we now live for Jesus and His glory. Now we must stay dead and stop trying to resurrect the flesh so we can embrace all that He is (Romans 6:11–13). Instead of pursuing what we want, we now pursue what Jesus wants for this world (Matthew 6:33). Instead of embracing the temporal things this life offers, we embrace eternity with Him (2 Corinthians 4:16–18; Colossians 3:1–2).
What are you doing with your one life? This is the only one you get. There are no substitutes, no do-overs, no mulligans, and no second chances. This is it. Is your obsession with Jesus so great that He consumes your life? Are you pushing everything else aside to spend more time studying His Word and seeking Him in prayer? Or are you wasting your one life staring at your phone or television screen? Are you getting up early to have more time to spend with Him or sleeping in to satisfy your selfish desires? You can’t change your past, but you can set the course for your future. How will you live your one life?