Your Life is a Gift from God

 


What is Your Life? Part 1

 

Introduction

From the moment you are born to the day you die; your life is essentially yours to do as you please. You are, after all, a freewill agent. However, if you wish to please the Lord you will live your life according to His word.

As Jesus states, “Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” (Matthew 7:21).

Since God gave you your life, as a gift, it would make sense that you would want to please Him who created you in the first place. But not everyone sees it that way.

 

In the Garden

We’re all familiar with the Garden of Eden story; creation, Adam and Eve, Cain and Able, etc. But we sometimes just skim over the story as we’ve learned it since we were children and can give a decent summary of those stories.

Sometimes we need to stop and focus for a bit on that which we already know and get a better appreciation for it. For example, Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them (Genesis 1:26-27). As we are created in the image of God, we should be appreciative of what we look like. It’s not always the physicality that counts but that which is within us.

Let’s look closer at chapter 2, And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed (Genesis 2:7-8). God put the breath of life, literally, into our bodies.

As I stated before, we are freewill agents and as you've seen in the story of chapter 3, Adam and Eve decided to show their appreciation to the serpent instead of The Father. Look at Adam’s words in verse 12, Then the man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” (Genesis 3:12). Not only did he blame Eve, but he also first blamed God!

 

Forfeiting the Gift

Those who commit suicide or attempt suicide are telling God that they don’t want His gift anymore. My opinion, this is a proverbial slap in the face to your creator. It’s understandable that you have depression issues and other problems; no one is denying that of you. However, aside from taking your meds and seeking therapy, you should also seek assistance from God’s Holy Word.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that it will immediately solve your problems, but it will serve as an aid and comfort to you in the long run. One thing you must remember, suicide is considered murder: murder of self.

After everything that Jesus gave His 12 disciples, Judas still wasn't happy enough and took his own life. He had betrayed innocent blood and, instead of repenting, hung himself (Mt. 27:3-5).

“But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” (Revelation 21:8) If you throw God’s gift away, He’ll throw you away.

 

Be Thankful Daily

Every day that you wake up and get out of bed, take a moment to thank God that He gave you one more day of life. Do something for Him, for others, and for yourself. …The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. (James 5:16) Make your life worthwhile, even if it’s just going to work every day and coming home.

 



Conclusion

As James writes, Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning (James 1:17). We are that good and perfect gift, don’t give it up for anything in this world or the next!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

09. Number Your Days

Image
  God’s Bucket List for You, part 2   Introduction In Psalms 90:10-12, Moses prayed, The days of our lives are seventy years; And if by reason of strength they are eighty years, Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; For it is soon cut off, and we fly away. Who knows the power of Your anger? For as the fear of You, so is Your wrath. So teach us to number our days, That we may gain a heart of wisdom. We’re only give so much time here on Earth and it is up to us to make everyday count. Each day breaks down into just 1440 minutes and when you subtract to amount for school/work and sleep, it’s even less. We should appreciate the amount we have daily.   I’ve Got Plenty of Time How often have we said, or heard someone say, that they have plenty of years ahead of them to do this or that? Most young people believe that religion is for the older people; those headed into their twilight years that are “closer to death” than they were in their youth. Yet, they do...
Read more

06. Realize Your Self-worth

Image
  God’s Bucket List for You, part 5  Introduction to the series, click here Introduction One of the problems I suffer from, as do a lot of people, is a low self-esteem. We often make the mistake of basing our self-esteem on our family, friends, occupation, area we live in, and our home. Although all of that factor into our lives, they don’t have to be the main basis of our self-esteem. As part of His bucket list for us, God wants us to realize our self-worth by examining our lives according to His scriptures. If we are not following His word, as written, then we need to change and build up our self-esteem.   Moses’ lack of Self-worth In our previous article , we looked at Moses and the excuses he made to God as he didn’t want to lead his people out of Egypt. One of his excuses was a lack of eloquent speech. Here’s what he said in Exodus 4:10, Then Moses said to the LORD, “O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant;...
Read more

IMMORTAL (I’m Mortal)

Image
(from 2013) Introduction “Do No Try This at Home” is a phrase generally seen as a disclaimer on certain television shows that feature dangerous stunts or other things in which professionals have been training to do for many years. Teenagers and young adults will attempt to imitate these very same stunts themselves. Why? Because it’s the thrill of the stunt and an opportunity to gain approval of their peers. To them failure is not an option as well as death. It’s a certain level of immortality that young people feel because, to them, their whole life is ahead of them and death only happens to old people. But as a preacher once said, “The Old must die and the young do die.” Definitions of Immortal The dictionary definition for immortal is ‘Exempt from Death’ or ‘Imperishable’.   In other words, you can never die or you live forever. But this is not true and we all, eventually, will die. In addition, the dictionary also defines immortal on the basis of a noun in...
Read more