Tag: zeal

What’s on Your Bucket List?

“What pain to find your life-work to be a lot of wood, and hay, and stubble that will blaze furiously, and die out in ashes! You know what I mean: so much time spent in planning frivolous amusements for the people, so much talent expended in teaching that which is not the gospel, so much zeal consumed upon matters that do not concern eternal things, all this will burn. Beloved, do your Master’s work, win souls, preach Christ, expound your Bibles, pray men to be reconciled to God, plead with men to come to Christ. This kind of work will withstand the fire; and when the last great day shall dawn, this will remain to glory and honor!” —C.H. Spurgeon

“It’s all gonna burn” my pastor used to say. Not just houses, cars, money, possessions, politics or physiques—but ambitions, wants, lusts and goals both pursued and achieved. Even an atheist would agree. But God guarantees that some things last forever—human souls, His Word and the reward for being about His business while we’re here. “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us,” Gandalf told Frodo in The Lord of the Rings. Frodo decided to save the world.

You have a day ahead of you—invest wisely.

—j

Don’t Stop

“Keep about the work God has given you. Do not flinch because the lion roars; do not stop to stone the devil’s dogs; do not fool away your time chasing the devil’s rabbits. Do your work. Let liars lie, let corporations resolve, let the devil do his worst; but see to it that nothing hinders you from fulfilling the work that GOD has given you. He has not commanded you to get rich. He has never bidden you defended you character. He has not set you at work to contradict falsehood about yourself which Satan and his servants may start to peddle. If you do those things, you will do nothing else; you will be at work for yourself and not for the LORD. Keep at your work. Let your aim be as steady as a star. You may be assaulted, wronged, insulted, slandered, wounded and rejected of men. But see to it with steadfast determination, with unfaltering zeal, that you pursue the great purpose of your life and object of your being until at last you can say, “I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do.” ­—Pastor Matt M. Hoekstra

Let’s go…

—j