All of us want to be liked and respected! When we are young, (and for many, all their lives), we are obsessed with how we look in the mirror (weight, beauty, etc.) As we get older & get jobs/careers, we want respect and admiration for what we do and how we do it. At every age, we want good friends who will tell us we are valuable and likable, and an important and integral part of their lives. And in our age of social media, we all want our Facebook and Twitter posts to be “liked”! I must confess, that as I share my blogs on Facebook as well as my website, I am guilty of wondering who will “like” my blog! The problem is that if we depend on any or all of these things to give us our self-image, (how we view ourselves), we will be constantly disappointed!
My wife CJ and I just returned from a month in Florida at the Villages retirement community. It is an impressive place, and I was encouraged by the high level of activities available for people to stay in shape and remain fairly healthy. However, my baby-boomer friends, no matter how much we exercise and eat healthy, our bodies will get weaker and slower over time, and eventually return to dust or ashes. And no, none of us are going to look so good that we turn heads at the beach anymore (heck, most of us never did anyway!). As I played several rounds of golf, I met numerous nice people, and found out mostly what they used to do for a living! It’s tough, especially for men, to base your whole self-image on your job title. It makes it much more depressing in retirement to try to figure out who you are now, and what are you supposed to do with the rest of your life! For some, it seems like life ends in a constant series of golf outings, (substitute your favorite hobby, or sitting around watching TV), nice dinners in restaurants, going out for entertainment, doing some traveling, and hoping you have enough insurance to cover the various levels of senior care you know you have coming! And even sadder, many of us start to not only feel old, but we succumb to thinking old! Because our bodies feel more aches & pains, our minds lure us into thinking we are “old people” who don’t have anything to offer anymore!
Let me suggest a better plan! Turn your life over to Jesus, and recognize who you can become IN CHRIST, now and forever! And if you have already surrendered your life to Jesus, remember who you are!! Live and act like the new, eternal creation that God has made you into! 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. -2 Corinthians 5:17 (ESV) Yes, even though we “feel” old and have the inevitable aches & pains, WE will live forever in Christ! C.S. Lewis reminded us, “We don’t HAVE a soul; we ARE a soul. We HAVE a body”. In the same chapter of II Corinthians 5, Paul reminds us that we should keep our eyes on the ultimate prize, to live with Jesus in His Kingdom:
2 Corinthians 5:1-10 (ESV)
1 For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, 3 if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. 4 For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5 He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. 6 So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, 7 for we walk by faith, not by sight. 8 Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9 So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
The bottom line is, yes, we will get older and our bodies won’t last forever! (Hey, isn’t it a privilege to be able to get older?) But if we are new creations in Jesus, having surrendered our lives to his rule, the real us, our souls, will live forever with Jesus in His Kingdom! Peter, writing to persecuted Christians who struggled to go on and face lives that at time seems to offer no hope, beautifully described how God sees us in our forgiven and redeemed state in Christ:
1 Peter 2:4-5, 9-12 (ESV)
4 As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. 12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
Brothers & sisters in Jesus, remember that we have received God’s mercy & forgiveness, and have become new creations in Christ! You and I will live forever, so stop thinking like the world and limiting who you are, just because you feel older physically. Spend your time here sharing the good news of God’s forgiveness through Jesus, invite others to join the Kingdom, serve and love the hurting in Jesus’ name, and live fearlessly, knowing that nothing nor no one can ultimately keep us from our wonderful, eternal future in Jesus! Live bold, not old!