One Month to Live Message #1: Why not here?

Are we with the living or the dead? Photo-Christiansunite.com

Did you make your bucket list?

Reading this article was surely near the top? Reading the One Month to Live book had to be right behind it? Or not.

Of all the books that I have ever read, One Month to Live ranks in the top 1000. It is not the greatest book ever written. It is full of cliché’s—the first chapter is called living the dash. The stories about the dash between two dates on a tombstone has circulated the internet for at least 15 years, and probably made the water cooler circuits before that. Many preachers have addressed the topic. There is plenty of stuff in this book that may seem like old hat, been there done that stuff, and many familiar stories—the starfish one comes to mind.

So why are we reading this book?

We are not. We are embarking on a short, but I pray intense and powerful journey of discovery. The very provocative question at the root of this book is what will move us forward: What would you do if you only had one month to live?

This ain’t no Bible Study disguised in a green book. We will use our Bibles, but my hope is that we will use so much more.

We have been given direct access to God. As we go on this journey, let’s not only ask God what he thinks, but make those moments where we listen. A couple of the challenges in this journey involve setting aside an hour, and when we are done—a full day—to listen to God. OMG—I thought this was only thirty days worth of reading, now you tell me when I’m done, I am supposed to set aside a full day just for God and me?

Bonus!

We also have each other. Are we not to encourage one another? Are we not to share each other’s burdens?

As we embark upon this study, I would ask you to consider this phrase: Why not here?

This country needs another Great Awakening: Why not here?

Why wait for someone else to get the ball rolling? Why not get it rolling here?

Let us live our lives to the full now. Let us use this challenge to jump start really living real lives—genuine, authentic lives—lives where we don’t pretend, don’t say what people want to hear, where we follow the dreams and passions that God put in us.

John 10:7-10

Therefore Jesus said again, "I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

What does life to the full mean? Let’s find out together.

There are four main areas that we will look at over the coming weeks. They are:

· LIVE PASSIONATELY

· LOVE COMPLETELY

· LEARN HUMBLY

· LEAVE BOLDLY

The product of striving to do these things is to live with no regrets. We will make mistakes, skin our knees like when we first learned to ride our bikes, still have some pain—make no mistake, OMTL is not a pain pill; but we will learn how to live without regrets.

If your goal in life is to stay as far in your comfort zone as you can, I pray that you discover early in this process that your goal and God’s goal are on a head-on collision course. God wants us to live a very full life assured of an eternity after this life. We have been set free.

The scriptures that follow and the order they appear reflect the nature of this challenge.

Luke 7:31-32 Live Passionately

"To what, then, can I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling out to each other:

"'We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;

we sang a dirge, and you did not cry.'

We played the music of life and you didn’t live. We are always waiting to live. We are waiting for something to get excited about, something to get passionate about. Well, don’t be blinded like those who do not have Jesus and do not have hope. The music of life is playing and that’s what we should be passionate about.

I hunted a little when I was young, but by my early twenties, the thought of hunting defenseless animals when there was no food shortage just didn’t ring my bell. I don’t know if I can relate to you guys that put out feed so the deer will come to you. This seems a ridiculous way to get your meat to come to you. Don’t we already have that? It’s called Schwann’s.

In the mid 1990’s when I was stationed in Orlando, there was a lottery to get an alligator hunting permit. I had not done any real hunting since I was a second lieutenant, but the thought of spearing a gator, wrestling it into the boat, and overcoming a creature that had a fighting chance ignited a passion in me. It was only after failing to get picked two years in a row that we discovered the odds of getting one of these permits was pretty remote. That was a short lived passion.

Over the course of my life’s exploration, I have discovered some passions that were for life. Writing is something that I have always enjoyed and I found that in everything I have ever done, writing found a way into it.

As we begin this exploration, my prayer is that you will discover or confirm a passion and find out what God wants you to do with it.

John 13:1 Love Completely

It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love.

Jesus was not ambushed by sinful men in the middle of his ministry. Jesus walked right into the middle of sinful men to fulfill the purpose for which he came—to show the full extent of his love.

So what are we looking at in this area? Let’s start with the One we should love most completely. What should our response to God’s love and grace be? Part of it will be unique to us, but for all, we should:

Give God the first day of each week

Give God the first part of each day

Give God the first part of our income

Give God first consideration in every decision

There are people that we need to love completely, and that will be part of our discovery in the next few weeks.

Philippians 2:5-8 Learn Humbly

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross!

Often—not always, but often--we find that the people with the most degrees or the highest positions or the most tenure are the worst learners. Somewhere along the way, being right became more important than learning.

This isn’t always the case, and the best thing to overcome this is a little self-medication. The prescription is humility. I was in the Marine during a time when the world was going from analog to digital. Our communications equipment was getting upgraded at every turn.

Here are two words that for the remainder of my time on earth I hope I don’t have to deal with again.

USER FRIENDLY

Whenever I read that term on a tech manual, five words came to mind:

LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE!

Only the young Marines that went to a six or eight week school right out of boot camp knew how to use these things. So we got all the officers together and had a couple 19 year old kids give us a class. The first thing we had to tell them—other than this is not a court martial. When you see that much brass in one spot and only two junior Marines, their pucker factor goes up a little bit.

We had to tell them, teach us like we don’t know anything about this equipment—BECAUSE WE DON’T.

What a wonderful experience for everyone when we say, teach me.

We need to set aside our degrees, certifications, rank, position, titles, false bravado, and the like and say to God: teach me. I’m over the hurdle of having to be right.

Luke 9:51-56 Leave Boldly

As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, "Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?" But Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they went to another village.

God did not give us a timid spirit. We are to be bold. We are humble in our learning but bold in our God given purpose. That is not to be bold or brash in any purpose, but in our God-given purpose.

Think of Paul’s comments to Timothy: I have run the good race, fought the good fight, and kept the faith. At the end of our lives will we say, I have:

Run the good race

Fought the good fight

Kept the faith

Then we can leave this world not looking back, because the important stuff will be done and the stuff that wasn’t important was cast off.

What do we do today?

First, suspend reality for the next 30 days and really explore. Ask what would I do if I had one month to live? Make it a part of your daily thinking and meditation. Don’t worry about the crazy stuff—wouldn’t pay my bills, wouldn’t go to work, wouldn’t drive under 100 mph, would spend all my money on Kopi Luwak coffee: or not! That stuff will filter itself out. Give yourself some credit for general sanity. It’s the insanity of the burdens that we carry for a lifetime that we have full permission to cast off as we visualize leaving this world in 30 days. As you navigate your day, ask—how important will what I am doing or about to do be when I’m gone in a month.

Share—find some way to share your thoughts, insights, and struggles with another person or a group. You probably won’t share all of them. We are each other’s sounding boards and sanity checks. And we are each other’s encouragers.

Read—Read a chapter a day in your book or an article a day online. If nothing else, just go to the make it count moments in either. These take the general question of what would I do if I had one month to live and provide a specific focus for each day. Many will want to read more. There are scriptures attached to each daily reading. There are additional provocations online. Take some notes of what you think is important.

When you do come to the end of your life, you won’t care if you read the book or not, but you will care if you lived this life fully.

As they were going along the road, someone said to Jesus, "I will follow you any place you go."

Jesus said to them, "The foxes have holes to live in, and the birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to rest his head."

Jesus said to another man, "Follow me!"

But he said, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father."

But Jesus said to him, "Let the people who are dead bury their own dead. You must go and tell about the kingdom of God."

Another man said, "I will follow you, Lord, but first let me go and say good-bye to my family."

Jesus said, "Anyone who begins to plow a field but keeps looking back is of no use in the kingdom of God."

Luke 9:57-62 NCV

Now you might think, c’mon Jesus, those were reasonable requests.

Jesus is saying, do you really want to live? Do you really want to live? Do you really want to live?

Then put aside all of those things you hold to be more important and come follow me and live.