Keep Building: Don’t Waste Your Life

“For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 1:8)

I remember kind of hating it when I was a student and people would tell me, “You can do anything you want to with your life.” It’s the kind of statement that sounds empowering to adults, especially those who maybe wish they’d done something else with their lives.

trees_350To me, though, it sounded like pressure, like an unfinished sentence with a threat on the end: “You can do anything you want with your life . . . so don’t blow it!” Yikes! How was I supposed to know what to do that wouldn’t be a huge waste of my one time around the track before heading to heaven?

Peter offers one good answer to that paralyzing question. Whether you become a microbiologist or a sanitation officer or a Hollywood stunt person, here’s the key to not wasting your life: Use all that freedom and potential to build into you the 8 qualities we’ve been talking about this week.

That’s the only way you as a Christian can keep from wasting all your potential in Christ. Period.

Think: Do you really believe that growing in these 8 areas is more important than where you went to college or who you married or what you do for a living? Really? If so, how does that belief play out in your every day choices?

Pray: Ask God to help you not to be ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Do: Write down the 8 qualities from verses 5-7 and put them in your Bible or on your forehead or somewhere that you’ll be forced to see and think about them again next week.