Lately I've had the occasion to
fly a lot around the country, preaching here and there. Even though I'm here on
Sundays, it seems like my weeks have been spent in airports, sometimes for a
long time, as I've had mechanical delays and things like that. And I've become
very much aware of a book that I knew was out there but I see literally all
over all the airports that I've been in, in the last month or so, it has been
labeled, at least, the best selling religious book of the time. The title of it
is Your Best Life Now. I have seen stacks and stacks and stacks of those books
everywhere I've gone.
Out of curiosity, I want to know
what's in the book and so I found this on page 5, “God wants this to be the
best time of your life.” On another page it says, “Happy, successful, fulfilled
individuals have learned how to live their best life now. On another page it
says, “As you put the principles found in these pages to work today, you will
begin living your best life now.” And that is absolutely true if you're not a
Christian. This is it, you better get the book because your next life is going
to be infinitely worse than this one.
This is your best life now. In fact,
it's your only life because in the world to come, you will only exist in a
perpetual state of dying with no hope, no satisfaction, no meaning, no joy and
no future and no relief from eternal suffering. That's the worst life possible.
And this is your best life, if your next life is in hell.
But, on the other hand, if you are a
child of God and your sins are forgiven and you've come to embrace Jesus Christ
as your Lord and Savior, this is not even close to your best life.......
Contrary to what is popular today,
even in religious circles, even in quote/unquote religion circles, even in the
name of Jesus, the Lord is not promising you here and now a full, happy, rich,
satisfying, trouble-free life of health, wealth and success. Oh He does promise
that. Absolutely...a full, rich, satisfying, trouble-free life of health and
wealth and success and absolute joy and peace and perfection...but not
now...not now. In fact, quite on the other hand, our Lord has promised to those
who know Him and love Him in this life...trouble, persecution, rejection,
difficulty, trials, temptation, pain, suffering, sorrow, sickness and even
physical death.
So, for Christians, this is our worst
life now. It isn't that it's bad, but comparatively it's the worst when you
think about the life to come, which is the best. Your best life as a Christian
begins when this life ends.
- John Macarthur
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