Philippians 1:20-21
I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
We never know how close we are to eternity! In 1953 I had completed basic training in California and was being transported to Texas. Approximately fifty of us were flying on an older model military transport plane—an old one! It was left over from World War II.
We made an interim stop in New Mexico, and just as we landed, one of the two propellers stopped. As we waited for the repairs to be made, a mechanic mentioned that we were just fortunate—if we had been in the air when the propeller stopped, we might not be there. Yikes!
Thinking about it now I realize that we could very easily have crashed, and I could have been ushered into eternity! I have had other close calls that reveal to me that we are just a heartbeat from eternity!
All of us walk through life on borrowed time. Unfortunately, many of us are prone to behave as if we would go on living for many more years. We cling onto life with our every breath and scream bloody murder at the thought of our death—for what? Not for what we can do for the Lord or to serve Him, but just to live a little longer.
I want to live in such a way that others will see Christ in me. Not only did Paul express his commitment to live only for Christ, he demonstrated it by the way he lived. If ever there was an example of a sold-out Christian life, it was the apostle Paul. Let me close for today with Paul’s statement in Philippians 1:20: “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”
May God richly bless you as you bless others by your words and actions!
– – – Pastor Cecil