What are you living for? part 5
A Career? or a Mission?
Dr. Benjamin Mays wrote the following:
I have just one minute — only sixty seconds in it,
Forced upon me — can’t refuse it; didn’t seek it, didn’t choose it,
But it’s up to me to use it. I must suffer if I lose it, give account if I abuse it.
Just a tiny little minute — but eternity is in it.
Dr. Mays was spot on! It may only be a minute, “but eternity is in it.”
Life is Not a Dress Rehearsal
In one of his sermons, Dr. Ravi Zacharias told the story of Robert Jaffray of Canada. Jaffray came from a wealthy family, and in fact, he was the heir to a large newspaper fortune in Toronto. When he was a young man, he learned the Chinese language and was offered a large salary by Standard Oil of New York; if he would forego his missionary career and work for them.
He refused, so they doubled their salary offer. He refused again. The words: “Only one life, ’twill soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last,” rang in his ears. They contacted him with this message: “Robert Jaffray. At any cost.”
He replied, “Your salary is big. Your job is too small.”
He went on to spend 35 years as a missionary in China and helped translate the Bible into Cantonese. When World War II broke out, he and other missionaries were placed in an internment camp. He died there two weeks before the end of the war. Did he waste his life? It depends on your perspective.
If you spend your life in the service of the Kingdom of God, the road may not, and most likely will not, be easy. But ten thousand years from now, you won’t regret your decision. We only get one chance to do whatever we’re going to do on planet earth. Soon enough - sooner than we think - our little space of time will be over.
Do you just have a career? Or do you have a career AND also are on a mission for God? The answer to that question makes all the difference in the world.
I’d like to repeat the two questions I asked in the beginning, asking you to ponder them again in the light of what God’s Word says.
- What do you do for a living? (Most of us can answer that question easily.)
- What are you living for? That’s the harder question.
May God help us to live for Christ today and every day. END
