Thursday, January 15, 2009

The Curious Case of Living for Christ

I never see “R” movies except for The Passion of the Christ. I did see a PG-13 recently that truly made think about some things that I can relate to spiritually and hopefully you can relate to these things as well.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button reminded me of Forrest Gump I later discovered that the screen play for both movies were written by the same person...duh.
Anyway as I was reading Ecclesiastes I was reminded of Benjamin Button. Although there is a hint of reincarnation and a poor representation of good morals in the film; I learned from the film something we can all learn from Ecclesiastes.
We need to take time to live and take time to love. Unlike the film, sex should only occur within marriage and I will always stand for the principles in God’s word. I take away from Button a reminder that I need to take time to love on my kids even more as they are a precious gift.
I need to take more time to just be with my wife and I need to take more time to fulfill the actual service to others part of ministry and the actual spreading of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I need to make the things that matter for an eternity and that will glorify God my highest priority in life.
Our lives on planet earth are slowly used up. Sublimation; our life is but a vapor or as you will see below becomes just smoke. In Christ, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, but these things we hold dear for ourselves will soon pass away.
Love the Lord your God with all your soul, mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love your family and love God and other enough to tell other about Jesus. After all that is the only reason you are still here on planet earth. Consider the passage below from God’s word , I chose to present it in the paraphrase: “The Message” for effect.
Ecclesiastes 4:1-16 (MSG) 1 Next I turned my attention to all the outrageous violence that takes place on this planet—the tears of the victims, no one to comfort them; the iron grip of oppressors, no one to rescue the victims from them. 2 So I congratulated the dead who are already dead instead of the living who are still alive. 3 But luckier than the dead or the living is the person who has never even been, who has never seen the bad business that takes place on this earth. 4 Then I observed all the work and ambition motivated by envy. What a waste! Smoke. And spitting into the wind. 5 The fool sits back and takes it easy, His sloth is slow suicide. 6 One handful of peaceful repose Is better than two fistfuls of worried work— More spitting into the wind. 7 I turned my head and saw yet another wisp of smoke on its way to nothingness: 8 a solitary person, completely alone—no children, no family, no friends—yet working obsessively late into the night, compulsively greedy for more and more, never bothering to ask, "Why am I working like a dog, never having any fun? And who cares?" More smoke. A bad business. 9 It's better to have a partner than go it alone. Share the work, share the wealth. 10 And if one falls down, the other helps, But if there's no one to help, tough! 11 Two in a bed warm each other. Alone, you shiver all night. 12 By yourself you're unprotected. With a friend you can face the worst. Can you round up a third? A three-stranded rope isn't easily snapped. 13 A poor youngster with some wisdom is better off than an old but foolish king who doesn't know which end is up. 14 I saw a youth just like this start with nothing and go from rags to riches, 15 and I saw everyone rally to the rule of this young successor to the king. 16 Even so, the excitement died quickly, the throngs of people soon lost interest. Can't you see it's only smoke? And spitting into the wind?

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