25 Woods Lake Road, Building 8, Greenville, SC
What would you do differently if you knew you only had one year to live? This is not a hypothetical question. What if you really knew your life would end one year from today? What plans would you change, what relationships would you mend, what values would you embrace? Now, imagine the kind of difference your life could make if you started living that way today!
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If a wealthy businessman entrusted his entire company to you while he was away on a yearlong journey, but you failed to follow any of his instructions and you bankrupted the corporation, you could not act surprised if he became angry with you. When we are entrusted with something, it carries with it an expectation. Our Lord has entrusted us with His message, and one day He will return to settle accounts. Are we putting what He has given us to good use?
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No doubt, many people saw Jesus hanging on the cross and thought, “What a waste! He could have done so much more good if He hadn’t died.” But Jesus compared Himself to a kernel of wheat, which will never become more than a single seed unless it falls into the ground and dies. Only by dying can it spring to life and produce many more seeds. As His followers, we have been called to die to our own life just as Jesus did. Until we die, we will never begin to truly live!
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When we consider what part we are supposed to play in the Great Commission, it can be difficult to know where to begin. The vastness of the mission compared to our limited resources and abilities can leave us feeling overwhelmed and immobilized. But God never asks us to do more than we can. All He asks is that we do what we can and allow Him to take our little and use it for something great. Be encouraged to know that however small your role may seem, what you do for Christ matters!
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As the church today, we have become professionals at gathering. We spend millions on massive buildings, hi-tech sound and video productions, even pyrotechnics in some cases! We have become experts at putting on performances that rival Disney and Hollywood, all in an effort to meet the ever-growing demands of our members so they’ll be happy and keep coming back. In so doing, we have completely missed the heartbeat of God and have entertained ourselves into irrelevance.
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Have you ever had a task before you that you dreaded so much, you tried to find ways to delay it or to keep from having to do it at all? Maybe it was a difficult exam, a dentist appointment, or a meeting with your boss. But none of those events come close to the crushing pressure that Jesus faced as He made His way to the cross. So then, what caused Him to pick up the pace and walk boldly towards Jerusalem, straight into the suffering that awaited Him, and what can we learn from His example?
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What a tragedy it would be to reach the end of your life and still not know the purpose of it all; to live for 70 or 80 years and have nothing of eternal value to show for it! For the most part, we spend our lives pursuing temporary achievements and storing up temporary things, never realizing that one day they will all slip through our fingers like sand. We get so preoccupied with the present that we lose sight of eternity. We must pray that God will reveal to us the brevity of life and the seriousness of eternity, so that we will learn how to live a life of purpose.
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Mary and Joseph didn’t ask for this! They were quite content making their plans and living their lives. Things were going along just fine. And then, without warning, along came God and dropped a bombshell in their lap, telling them that all their plans would be laid aside so that God could use their lives for His plans. They could have been angry. They could have fought back. But instead, they both submitted themselves to God’s will, and their lives were never the same. How do we react when God drops an unwelcome announcement into our lap and asks us to put our lives on hold for Him?
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The world puts all kinds of labels on us to define who we are: smart or dumb, pretty or ugly, popular or unpopular, successful or failure. The truth is, all of those labels are lies! We are not defined by any of those things. Jesus met many people whose lives were shaped and limited by the negative labels society had placed on them, but His transforming power set them free from those lies and gave them a brand new identity in Him. Don’t allow other people to define you. Find your identity in Christ alone!
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None of us would put much value on a single sheet of paper. And yet a piece of paper once sold for almost $750,000… not because of the paper, but because of whose name was on it. It was a letter signed by Abraham Lincoln. The same is true with us. We ourselves are worthless jars of clay, but because Christ has put His name on us, we now have incalculable value! We have value, not because of who we are, but because of whose we are. It’s time to stop basing our worth on our own identity, and start discovering the real value we have been given in Christ!
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When you think about your plans for the future, what percentage of those plans revolve around you, your needs, your dreams, your happiness, your money, your comfort? How is it possible that those of us who call ourselves followers of Christ are so preoccupied with our own agenda rather than being totally consumed with His agenda? Because of what Christ has done for us, we have been called to live our lives entirely for Him. What would it take to move you from where you are to that kind of life?
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When difficult or painful circumstances come into your life, do you ever stop to consider that they may have been divinely orchestrated by God to bring about His ultimate purpose in your life? Many Christians see hard times as a sign that God has abandoned them or that He is not being kind to them. But the Bible teaches us that God is at work even in the worst moments of our lives, and if we will surrender them to Him, He will bring about a life of fruitfulness for His glory!
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