Playing penny ante games?

Stuart and Jill Briscoe

The couple leading our Pastors’ Retreat inspired me! He’s been serving Jesus for 67 years, she for about 60. At 84 years of age, he’s not ready to retire. At a time when most would be looking for a rocking chair near the fire, Stuart and Jill still spend 80% of the year traveling the globe preaching the Gospel. Don’t think that he’s a dour, humorless man bent under the weight of responsibility or wearing the grim face of a martyr. His humor is dry, his face reflects joy.  Both are as serious as one can be about the mission that everyone should hear the Gospel of Christ.  Heaven is real and so is hell, and therefore, theirs is an all-consuming passion! 

It’s good, every now and then, to get back to the basics, isn’t it? The stark question of eternity – with Christ or forever apart from Him – begs an answer.  Most every other thing we do - building businesses, planting gardens, even loving our family – has a finite limit in time. Sooner or later we will leave those things behind. What then?  If we know Christ, we step through the door He opens to us to eternal life.  Jesus said, "There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. . . .I am going to prepare a place for you . . .  When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am." (John 14:2-3, NLT)  But, what of those without that glorious hope?

Life can be wasted playing penny ante games!  God calls us to raise the stakes, to put everything on the table, playing for keeps. Does it seem too much to risk? Can we, to stay with my metaphor, bet our very lives on His promise?  Need we even ask that? Paul wrote his final letter from a dungeon in Rome, a place so awful as to be beyond our imagination.  He knew that execution was near at hand. Was he full of regrets, wishing he had pursued his vocation of tent-making?  Did he wonder if it mattered, or if God had failed him?  You be the judge as you read his words to Timothy. "God chose me to be a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher of this Good News. That is why I am suffering here in prison. But I am not ashamed of it, (nothing to regret!) for I know the one in whom I trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until the day of his return. Hold on to the pattern of wholesome teaching you learned from me—a pattern shaped by the faith and love that you have in Christ Jesus." (2 Timothy 1:11-13, NLT)

To make Christ a hobby for Sunday mornings, to push the pursuit of God and His purposes to some secondary spot on our list of priorities, is to live an adventure that misses the point entirely. We were not created for trivial pursuits; we were created to know Him, to glorify Him, and to enjoy His Presence forever.  What can never be forgotten (and the devil tries to obscure this fact!) is that the heart that is set on Heaven and Home, finds the greatest serenity now. Through up’s and down’s, successes and failures, sickness and health, the child of God knows a ‘peace that passes understanding’ and a life of abundance that nothing and no one can steal.

Are you holding back from full commitment? Are you playing it safe?  Have you lost sight, temporarily, of the goal?

The word from the Word says “If any of you wants to be my follower,ou must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?" (Matthew 16:24-26, NLT)

Raise the stakes, play for keeps, put it all on the table!

__________________

Jesus You Are My Life

You are my life,

Oh precious Christ!

You are, to me,

The pearl of greatest price.

My love for You will never die,

Jesus, You are my life.

I come to You.

I run to You.

There's no greater joy

Than knowing You.

O Holy Fire,

Love's purest light,

Burn all desires ‘till

You are my one delight!

Oh conquering King,

Conquer my heart,

And make of me

A pleasing gift to God.

My love for You 
will never die.

Jesus, You are my life!

Steve Fry