Don't Waste Your Life

Interesting post from a friend at Mars Hill

http://www.whatarewemissing.blogspot.com/

“If Christ is an all-satisfying treasure and promises to provide all our needs, even through famine and nakedness, then to live as though we had all the same values as the world would betray him. I have in mind mainly how we use our money and how we feel about our possessions. I hear the haunting words of Jesus, ‘Don’t be anxious, saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?” For the Gentiles seek after all these things’ (Matthew 6:31-32). In other words, if we look like our lives are devoted to getting and maintaining things, we will look like the world, and that will not make Christ look great. He will look like a religious side-interest that may be useful for escaping hell in the end, but doesn’t make much difference in what we live and love here. He will not look like an all-satisfying treasure. And that will not make others glad in God.” [John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 2003), 107-108.]

This statement is so challenging, and yet it is so true. So how do I live in light of this? So much of the Christian life is counter-cultural. And I find that ironic in a culture many consider to be “Christian.” Most Christians don’t look much different from the rest of the world. At best, we look like a more moral version of our next door neighbor, and even that statement is debatable. Christians seek after wealth, comfort, a bigger house, a nicer car, vacations and status just as much as anybody. So how is the world supposed to see Christ in people who live no differently? If my neighbors don’t notice anything different in the way I live how can this be glorifying to God?

The Christian life is intended to be lived in such a way that people all around us are confronted by the reality of the existence of Christ. The first Christians were called Christians because they lived differently than everyone else; they lived like Christ, and that is how they got their name. Christians in that day had a reputation. The only reputation we have today is as hypocrites and judges. The world needs to see real Christianity lived out in front of them.