A Life Well Lived

Death is a fact of life. Setting aside the possibility of being alive when Jesus returns, we will all die. Our physical bodies will not be able to sustain life, yet the end of our bodies is not the end of life. We who are in Christ, redeemed by His sacrifice and born of the Spirit, have the promise of eternal life with Him. This promise is secure in what Christ has done, received by grace through faith apart from anything we do. At the same time, the life new life given to us by Christ is to be lived for Christ.
At our church we are preaching through the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew chapters 5-7). In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus teaches about the kingdom of heaven as it is displayed here on earth in His people. The past two Sundays we have looked at Matthew 6:19-24 and 25-34 considering that we are to live this life for the next. We are to make heavenly investments; we are not to be anxious about food and clothing but seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, knowing that He will supply what we need to live as long as he intends.
If you have been in church very long you have probably heard these passages preached. Of course we agree with them, but how well and how purposefully do we live them? After all, the here and now demands our attention.
This week we put the here and now on hold. We upended our schedules and gathered in the middle of the day on a Thursday to share our grief over a sister who passed from this life to the next, and to rejoice that she passed from this veil of tears to the presence of Jesus where there will be joy everlasting.
Hers was a life well lived. She was good at many things, but what she left behind was the most important thing. People loved her and knew that they were loved by her. Her life was hard, but her heart was not. When she came to the end of herself and embraced Jesus she was not old and she didn’t know it yet, but she was near the end of her life here. In the short time she had to live after she was born again she lived for the kingdom, she invested in eternity.
Diagnosed with advanced and aggressive cancer, much of the end of her life was in treatment, but she used that time as an opportunity to testify to doctors and nurses and technicians and patients – none of whom would she have been talking to if she wasn’t there for treatment – of the goodness and grace of Jesus who had saved her. As her life here was coming to a close she invested in eternity by investing in people.
This world is not our home; we are passing through this world on the way to our true home. Sometimes it is easy and sometimes it is hard, but we are not anxious because our Father knows what we need and He is seeing us through this journey every step of the way.
We seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness as we move toward Him. Our sister has passed over to the other side and she knows in full what we know in part. She knows all of the meaningless things she did and she knows the benefit of everything she did for Jesus. I suspect that if could send us a postcard she would say something like: “This is so much more amazing that I ever could have imagined. I can’t wait until you get here. Until you do, live your life with wild abandon for Jesus and His kingdom.”
Live this life with wild abandon for the next. That is a life lived well. Invest in the kingdom. How do we do that? How do we live in this realm and invest in the realm to come? Invest in God’s people. Invest in His Church. Invest in the gospel. Invest in discipleship.
That’s what we have been commissioned to do; preach the gospel and make disciples here and around the world. You won’t take anything with you but, by God’s grace to save and power to save, take as many as you can along with you. That is a life well lived.
Thank you, Sister. You displayed Jesus for us, and showed us how to live well. We will miss you, but only for a little while.