Don't Waste Your Life

We have a small group that meets on Sunday for encouragement through fellowship. In the beginning we just met and ate together which was satisfying but it was obvious that we needed something more, we needed direction and we yearned for more of Him in our conversation, now they didn't say that directly but my husband and I felt it and knew the Lord was leading us to something. We had been praying that God would show us what His will was for this group and He anwsered with Don't Waste Your Life, a book by John Piper at Desiring God. I can feel my soul coming alive as I read this book, it is powerful. Listen...

"Life is wasted if we do not grasp the glory of the cross, cherish it for the treasure that it is, and cleave to it as the highest price of every pleasure and the deepest comfort in every pain." pg 48

Last week my heart ached with the question: Do I get it? Do I truly get it? What Christ did? That He is the, as Piper says, blazing center of the Glory of God? Oh how I desire to. You know I am always so encouraged by Paul and his boldness and passion for living a life that was not wasted and I think... the cross was REAL to him. He understood the power of the cross and the pain and the grace that poured from it, do I? I feel so unconnected to it... sometimes like it is just a story... I want the realization of its magnificance to overtake my heart and mind and consume all my thoughts and my life.

"I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified."

(1 Corinthians 2:2)

"One of the reasons we are not as Christ centered and cross saturated as we should be is that we have not realized that everything-everything good, and everything bad that God turns for the good of his redeemed children-was purchased by the death of Christ for us. We simply take life and breath and health and friends and everything for granted. " pg 51

I am filled with gratitude this morning... for the power of the Cross in my life. I pray that I am able to see past myself today, to boast only in the cross, and to remind myself that "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me", that when Christ died... I died as well.

Today...

Stop... listen... reflect... and... Worship... Walk... keep listening... keep reflecting... and continue to Worship....