The Best Life
“For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of those that believe.” I Timothy 4:10
Living for Christ is the best life that anyone can have, but it’s not always an easy life, particularly for those Christians who still have one foot in the world. In other words, those who are conflicted about living the Christlike life in a world geared toward everything that is anti-God sometimes find it difficult to remain completely committed to righteousness and truth because their labor seems to bring either indifference or reproach from those with whom they come in contact. However, Christian maturity is what separates “the men from the boys” or the “women from the girls”, or, in this case, the determined from the deterred.
In a conversation with my cousin, I made the comment that when you know who you are in Christ, the world’s opinion of you has no value. I know that I am a nobody in the view of the world, but Christ died for me, and that tells me how much He loves and values me. One of the benefits of being a senior citizen is that you begin to not care what other people think of you, in that, you focus less on people’s opinions and more on what God thinks. After all, He is the One whose opinion really counts. We are living in a day where God’s opinion, His word, and His sovereignty are ignored or debased by more and more people. We seem to already have topped the peak of reverence for the Lord and the gospel and are sliding down at breakneck speed into the gutter of human depravity. I know that sounds rather foreboding, but scripture gives us a clear picture of how folks will “fall away” from truth and righteousness leading up to Christ’s return (II Thessalonians 2:3).
In the above verse, the Apostle Paul wrote that the living God is the Savior of all men, especially of those that believe. He was not teaching a form of universalism which holds that all people will be saved. Instead, he meant that all people have the potential to be saved because Christ died for all, and God desires for all to be saved (I Timothy 2:4), but only those who respond to Christ in repentance and belief will become the brother and sisters of Christ and the sons and daughters of God. The draw of the world becomes less and less attractive as one matures in Christ. Being older is not a “piece of cake” because of the aches and pains, the inability to do some of the things that I could do when younger, and the loneliness, but, even so, I am glad that I am as old as I am, considering how the world is going. Nevertheless, there is a Light at the end of the tunnel.