God's Summary

Sunday night our assistant pastor, Bro. Ed Russ, preached a message about how God summarized some people's lives in the Bible. He started off with Moses in Joshua chapter 1 how God said Moses was "my servant". He went on to talk about David - a man after God's own heart, Abraham - the friend of God, Job - perfect and upright, Daniel - "greatly beloved", and finally the Widow Woman in the NT - "she gave more". Being human, all of these people have flaws in their character and some had rather tragic lives. However, God saw fit to give us a "one liner" so to speak, about each of their lives. Something to leave us with. Something to help us get over all the bad stuff that happened or they did and let us leave the telling of their lives with something positive to take away. For instance, David committed adultery, murdered, married way too many women, had tragedy after tragedy in his family, but after everything in David's life that we could point fingers at and criticize and judge, God said that David was "a man after" his "own heart." Job never lost his testimony in the face of a terrible disaster in his family. He was always "perfect and upright." Daniel chose God's way rather than man's way and he did that all throughout his life and it resulted in him being "greatly beloved" by God. I'm glad that God sees fit to see the good in our lives rather than just all the bad. I'm glad that He didn't just tell us all the bad things about these people. Yes, being a widow was a very sad and terrible thing back in Bible times (still is I think), but God didn't dwell on that. He chose to bring to light the fact she gave MORE than anyone else. She gave ALL she had. She put God first over her own need. These people were put into the Bible as an example for us - good or bad - to know what or what not to do. But in the end, God summarized their lives with one or two simple statements. What will God have to say about our lives? What is my life to God? Faithful and true? A servant? Honest and trustworthy? Beloved? Having favor with God and man? Or will it be something negative. There are plenty of people in the Bible who are not even barely mentioned or we only see the bad things they did and then they are forgotten. Plenty of people didn't make it into the Hebrews Hall of Faith. Must be they sat on the sidelines and forgot all about the One Who loved them so much. So as you go throughout your day today, keep in mind God is watching - even the things that no one else sees - and He's keeping track. He'll be fair and honest when summarizing your life. Just don't make Him have to search long and hard to find the good stuff.