The Tenor of your life!

The Tenor of Your Life!

Have you ever had a nightmare and in that nightmare you dreamed that when you returned to your office one morning, your desk was missing! In other words, you were given a pink slip and would shortly be ushered out of the office. I am sure, if you are a working adult, such thoughts would have crossed your mind though it may not be in the form of nightmare. Losing a job happens not only to the C-Suite executives but to the production workers too as we read in the newspapers occasionally.

If the loss of job does befall us, we can take it from the hand of the Heavenly Father as His providence, as nothing in this life is outside His control.Just as in our salvation, God will grant us the ability to persevere to the end as Christ will not die in vain. Jesus mentioned in John 6:37 that, "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." While God will preserve us, will God see to it that we live a useful life on earth for His Kingdom? Put it another way, is it possible to have whole of our Christian life wasted on earth and the work that we do rejected by God though we may be saved? The answer is Yes! Though God will preserve us till the day of Christ, we could still live a wasted life due to our disobedience or mistaken belief. This is very clearly set forth by the Apostle Paul, to be revealed at the judgment seat of Christ for our works, as found in 1 Corinthians 3:14-15, "If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire." The truism of living a wasted life is further underscored by the Parable of the Pounds and the Parable of the Talents in Luke 19 and Matt 25 respectively, with dire consequences for some.

So what ought to be Tenor of our life, so that our life would not end up as a wasted one in the sight of God? If we look at an adult’s life, there are basically two things that pre-occupy him or her most, namely, family life if they are married and our secular (long-term) work. How are we to treat these two things and other earthly legitimate matters that we come in touch with? While these one or two things are certainly assigned by God to individual, genuine Christians, does it mean that we are to give our primary focus to these two earthly items alone and these two thus constitute the sum of our earthly usefulness? This is certainly not so as we learn from the Apostle Paul in 1 Cor. 7.In fact, these two are to be subservient to our devotion to the Lord Jesus. The Apostle Paul has a poetic treatment of this issue as he sets forth "the attitude of a true Christian toward all the transient temporalities of this earthly life"[Lenski]. According to the translation of 1 Cor 7:29-31 by Hendriksen we have the following:

• those who have wives let them be as though they had no wives,
• and those who weep let them be as though they did not weep,
• and those who rejoice let them be as though they did not rejoice,
• and those who buy let them be as though they did not possess,
• those using the world let them be as though they used it not.

The tenor of our life then ought to demonstrate that marriage, joy and sorrow, buying and selling are transient temporalities and we are to keep them at bay so that we may attend upon the Lord Jesus without distraction as set forth in 1 Cor 7:35. The injunctions of the Apostle Paul indeed resonate with many other parts of the scriptures. One very familiar to us is, namely, seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness (Matt 6:33) in the way of the Great Commission in making disciples as set forth in Matt 28:19.

There is no greater nightmare than, when at our deathbed, we realize that we have wasted the only ONE life that we can glorify God with. May this not be true in any one of us here this morning! Amen.