Should You Live Like You Are Dying?




The common wisdom is that people should live like they are dying.  There are even a couple of country and pop songs about it, so it must be good advice. 

The idea is that life is short, so live it up while you can.  Do all the things that you want to do here and now; after all, you won't get a second chance at life.  Each of us is just a heart attach, cancer diagnosis, plane crash, or mac truck away from the end, so why waste a single second?

Go ahead and do all those things that you have been wanting to.  Jump out of an airplane (with a parachute).  Tour Europe.  Fall in love.  Those things are pretty harmless.

What about other things that people feel that they should do?  Kiss that pretty co-worker while your wife isn't looking.  Try an illegal drug.   Risk your savings gambling to make it big, and quick.  That is not so harmless, yet pretty tempting at times. 

May I suggest that your life is not unfulfilled because you need to live like you are dying.  The problem is that we are all dead, and we don't even know it. 

"And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked..." (Ephesians 2:1,2a) 

We are born into this world dead in trespasses and sins.  The issue facing us is that we don't know how to live because we are not really living.  We need someone to show us what real life looks like, and then give it to us.

So Jesus comes first to live a real life, and then He gives us real life.  Living is not what we do when we are screaming our lungs out in exhilaration plummeting through the air toward the ground, a bit unsure whether or not that parachute is going to open.  Living is offering a cup of cold water to the thirsty.  It is clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, weeping with those who weep, rejoicing with those who rejoice.

The Christ lived this sort of a life, not worried about wheat thrills He was missing out on, but dedicated to serving others whenever the opportunity arose.  From His conception to His death Jesus lived a full life, a life full of compassion, truth, prayer, and sacrifice.

When He rose He gave that life to us.  "We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life." (Romans 6:4)      

You have a life that is hidden with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:3)  Here we are dying everyday.  We are weak, sickly, suffering, sinning.  But we are alive in Christ, and His life shines through us.

We are already living like we are dying, because we are dying, every day.  Caved in on ourselves, worried about getting done all the things that we think we will enjoy before it is too late.  New life in Christ enables us to forget about ourselves

 Jesus has given life to the dead.  We don't need to worry about packing all the thrills into this life.  There is a life of the world to come and it will be nothing but thrill after unexpected thrill.      

It is not living like you are dying.  The secret to living a fulfilled life is to die like you are living...forever.

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