”But the [one] living in careless ease, living has died.”
-Some suggest that when you stop living you start dying, but Paul narrows the focus. When you stop giving and serving, you start dying. You can see this illustrated in places like Amos 6.1-7 and Ezekiel 16.49. It is living a life which is all about self, about comfort and ease and abundance, while needs abound all around us. The walking dead, basically. True zombies. They look alive, but on the inside they’ve died. Perfect tense. At some point in the past, they died, with continuing results in the present. They were never really alive in fact. They were born dead, stillborn if you will, dead in their sins, and the life of Christ simply has never been planted and taken root in their hearts. There is no life or love of God in them. Only the threefold-self, me-myself-and-I. Living and looking out for number one. Nothing else really matters, nothing is more important. Sure, maybe there is room for others on the margins, a few ungleaned scraps, but I am gonna go for the gusto, I am gonna enjoy the good things of this life, I am gonna build more barns and fill ‘em with more stuff and I am gonna travel and do pretty much everything I want pretty much whenever I want - cuz I can - and the fate of my soul and plight of those around me is not gonna disturb my soul slumber. Not gonna cost me even one minute of sleep. And the day of the Lord, the day of reckoning, will come upon me like a thief in the night, an uninvited and unanticipated intruder. The great truth of life will dawn on me like a blazing sunrise, like a two-by-four in the face, that this life is so not about me, never was, never should be. Sadly, for too many, by then it will be too late (cf Luke 16.19-31).
-No, you and I are never done serving and giving as long as we’re still living. Generosity, altruism - they are never old-fashioned, never goes out of style. There is never a time when we can quit thinking about others and the needs around us - and if/when our bodies fail us or fall short of being able to get out there, so to speak, we can continue in prayer. But while we have strength, ours are the footsteps of Caleb (Joshua 14.10-12). Give me the hill country, he said! 85, and still going uphill, getting after it. Give me the hardest thing you’ve got, he said. Turns out, the hardest thing may very well be that simple daily dying to self, living in to the Great Command and the Second-which-is-like-it. Daily dying turns out to be the path of life, the soul’s sole way out of death. Let’s choose life, shall we?
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