Finding Life

Here is the formula for effective, satisfying, and meaningful living — it is to behave in a way that is not naturally comfortable.

It is in large part to contradict your inner selfishness and self-centeredness; it is forgetting ourselves; it is denying ourselves and taking up an agenda that is people-centered.

It can mean merely doing something helpful you aren't 100% comfortable with, but you choose to do it. You intentionally do it because you see or imagine a need and you want to inoculate someone with a dose of loving-kindness — IT CAN BE GOING INTO A HARD PLACE LIKE A HOSPITAL ROOM, OR JUST GIVING AN ENCOURAGING WORD.

Mattew 5:14,16 says, "You are the Light of the World...."

This is what we are here for. We have an agenda given to us by Jesus — it is to brighten this world. Everyone of us is given that incredibly important assignment. It means we are gifted resources having that potential. And we are given that responsibility!!!

It is mostly easy and possible, and it can start very small. It doesn't have to be a major life-shaking shift. It should start simply and naturally.

Remember Jesus' prayer? "Our Father in heaven... Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

This is such an important sentence. It shows what Jesus was about, and what we are to be about. (Christian living is not about packing your bags and just thinking about heaven.) Life is about bringing GOODNESS to earth, and beauty, and love, and improvements of any kind. Life is about letting the mind of God flow through us, solving problems and bringing joy, health, justice, prosperity.

The rest of Jesus' words in that text are these: "whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." Losing your life is not about judgment day or going to hell or spiritual condemnation. Nor is finding your life about going to that wonderful heavenly place.

“Saving your life” is to dry up spiritually !!!! It is to become a robot, or an automaton, living safely, efficiently, but coldly and hopelessly without a spark of meaning and purpose and warmth in your soul. It is to become or remain a dehydrated empty soul. That is what Jesus meant when he warned about “saving your life and losing it."

To find life is to become alive; to find life is to have meaning and purpose. It is to know you are valued and loved and needed and connected, not only to people, but to Jesus Christ. It is to live on exactly his agenda, expressing his values — the values of one who died for others. That is the kind of losing your life that brings real life. There is the key to vitality and zest and true life. Guaranteed !!!!

Finding your life is moving out of self-centeredness — taking some risks and, in small but real ways, brightening the lives of others.