Monday, July 2, 2007
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It's a ghost town now. But in the 1880s, she was one of the boomtowns of California - all because of some silver in the ground. When the price of silver soared, so did their fortunes and so did the population of this little town that we visited not long ago. But when the price of silver crashed, well, so did the town. Back in some of her better days, a fire hit the town and it burned a lot of it to the ground. The only original buildings still standing there today had one thing in common. In a town that was mostly wood structures, these were the ones that were made of adobe. They've reconstructed some of those wood buildings, but hey, they weren't there long ago because they couldn't survive the fire.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Built to Last."
That ghost town actually tells a story; what survives is only that which was built with something lasting. After we take our last bow, sometimes just with the perspective of passing years, that's how your life and mine will be. All that will matter is what was really lasting. All that really matters now is what's going to last, and it's tragic how ultimately meaningless much of what we spend ourselves on really is. It could be that God has arranged it for someone to be listening right now who is pouring a lot into goals and stuff that really don't matter much. He's been trying to get a wakeup call through to you so you could rearrange your priorities to make a far greater difference with the rest of your life than you've made until now.
In 1 Corinthians 3, beginning with verse 11, our word for today from the Word of God, He pulls back the curtain and shows us the view from the finish line of our lives. He says, "No one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames." Now, that's a heartbreaking picture. You get to the end of the one life you had, and everything you did with it burns in a fire marked "meaningless." Nothing to show for the one life I lived.
Now is the time to think about how lasting what we're doing and building really is; how eternally valuable it is, because then it's too late. What we read from the Bible makes it clear that the only foundation for a life that matters forever is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. He's the one who died so your sins could be forgiven, and He walked out of His grave so you can live forever. If your life seems hollow and unexplainably empty, it may be because Jesus is missing. He's the one you were made by. He's the one you were made for. If you would place your life in His hands today, then today could be the end of the wasted years and the beginning of the greatest years of your life.
And if you belong to Jesus, be sure you are, as Jesus said, "seeking first the Kingdom of God" ( Matthew 6:33), not your own kingdom. A life that survives every fire and matters forever is built this way: by basing every decision you make only on what Jesus says. You make sure that the people in your life are what you put first, not the projects, not the business, not your entertainment, not even a church. The people are what's going to last when everything else has burned. And the most eternal legacy you could leave with your life is to introduce someone else to Jesus Christ. Above all, be sure that you have anchored your life, your soul and your eternal destiny to the only One who can take you to heaven - Jesus Christ who died to get you there. If you're not sure you belong to Him; if you're not sure you've begun your relationship with Him would you go to our website yoursforlife.net and find a simple explanation of how you can be sure you belong to Him. Be sure you're going to heaven when you die. That's yoursforlife.net.
What a tragedy it would be to be a winner here for this blink of an eye and be a loser there for all eternity. Spend what you've got on what lasts. Be sure you belong to Jesus Christ.