<\/p>\n
\u201cFor I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand\u201d (2 Timothy 4:6).<\/p>\n
LIFE IS ONE OF OUR MOST PRECIOUS POSSESSIONS, BUT IT SHOULD NEVER BECOME AN IDOL TO US. Life is good, but it is not God. There are things more valuable than life, and one of these is virtue.<\/p>\n
When Daniel\u2019s three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, were commanded to worship the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up or be thrown into the fires of a great furnace, they chose to die, if need be, rather than back out of their promises to God. They said, \u201cOur God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up\u201d (Daniel 3:17,18). Their vows to God weren\u2019t negotiable, and their love for Him was worth dying for.<\/p>\n
I once had a friend who told me he\u2019d entered into a serious business contract that had ended up causing him great emotional pain. Keeping the contract had become so difficult that he felt he simply could not continue to do what was right. \u201cIf I don\u2019t break this contract, I am literally going to die,\u201d he said. But even if that were true (and it probably wasn\u2019t), wouldn\u2019t death with honor be preferable to life with dishonor? In God\u2019s scale of values, a great blessing is pronounced on the person of integrity who \u201cswears to his own hurt and does not change\u201d (Psalm 15:4).<\/p>\n
Many of us are plagued by the lack of any worth-dying-for love in our lives. As far as God is concerned, we have no commitments to Him that are not negotiable. He gets our reverence only up to the point where He stands between us and the life we think we deserve, at which point we\u2019re often willing to deny Him.<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s a great irony here: if we give up our honor to hold on to life, the result is not more life but a losing of all that life was ever meant to be. Jesus said, \u201cHe who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life\u201d (John 12:25). We do ourselves a huge favor, and more important, we show the greatest honor to God, when we loosen our grip on life.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cPray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for\u201d (Dag Hammarskj\u00f6ld).<\/p>\n Gary Henry \u2013 WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com<\/p>\n