We all should have one motto: We are living our life now! We are not living it in the future, but in the present.
If you have many years behind you, do not live like someone who is waiting to retire and die. Satan may remind you that you are not as active as you used to be because you are not able to do as much physical labor. You may become tired sooner, but then the stress and the pressure of your responsibilities may be far greater than when you were younger. Whether you are young or old you should have this attitude—you are living the life that God set before you now.
Projecting your hopes to the future can be detrimental to your walk with God. People usually think, “I will be blessed after a while. Someday things will be different than they are right now. One of these days I will get started in a ministry. One of these days something good will happen; it must be just around the corner.” That “just around the corner” thinking is probably one of the greatest deterrents to serving God. You are living your life now. Live it now!
Psalm 90 seems like one of the more morbid psalms, but it is not morbid if you view it correctly. Verses 9b–12 tell us, We have finished our years like a sigh. As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years, or if due to strength, eighty years, yet their pride is but labor and sorrow; for soon it is gone and we fly away. Who understands the power of Thine anger, and Thy fury, according to the fear that is due Thee? So teach us to number our days, that we may present to Thee a heart of wisdom. This is a secret of success. When you are inspired, write down the things that are the most important for you to do. Look for deep confirmation on God’s leading. Then live!
If you wait to live as soon as a certain problem in your life is solved, usually another problem appears. Many people say, “As soon as I get out of this situation, just as soon as I get out of debt, then I will live more fully for the Lord.” In the meantime, they live without discipline to get out of debt. They dig themselves deeper into debt every day, and so they are always waiting to “live” somewhere down the road. “Someday” they are going to come alive, and this is their great problem. If you view your life properly, it should not matter what you have been through. How bitter, how fruitless, how pointless, or how barren your life has been need have nothing to do with your life now. Your past successes and any goals that you attained may not count for much either in what you do now.
There are people who look forward to retiring. What a deadly attitude this is. It is better to keep busy. At the age of ninety-two, one of our brothers shelled popcorn for the children. This may not have seemed important to some, but there was deep, spiritual significance in what our brother did. He learned something new each day as he approached his task. He was busy serving his Master.
Work must mean more to you than keeping busy. You must realize that you are doing something significant, that you are doing your very best today to walk in an expression of the will of God. The will of God is action, just as faith is action. Some think that fulfilling the will of God means being a prophet, an elder, or a deacon. But the will of God is action. A true prophet is very active. A good elder, or a deacon, is very busy.
Do each day the things that are the most important for you to do that day. Forget the things that are past. Writing one’s memoirs or autobiography may be pointless. But once in a while it is good to stop and think about challenges that came in the past—how your hard work with strong faith broke impasses, and then miracles fell into place.
The way to live efficiently is to make a list each day of the things you must do according to their importance. If you did the things you were supposed to do yesterday, in order of their importance as the Lord laid them on your heart, you had no regrets yesterday; and today you will have no regrets. Today do the things that are the most important for today. This will give you a feeling that you are not waiting for something to happen. Today do your very best to walk in the perfect will of the Lord, and you will learn to evaluate your responsibilities as you go along.
Facing your responsibilities is somewhat like a boxing match. When the contestants start fighting, two factors really count. One is how they reach and punch, and the other is how strong their legs are. But another untold factor is that uncanny ability to take advantage of an opening and move in on it. You, too, must develop that alertness of watching for your opportunity, whether you are playing in sports or fighting a spiritual battle. You must always look for that opportunity which God will set before you.
Many people have the call of God upon their lives, but they do not have the diligence to seek Him until they have the alertness to be ready to press in and possess the opportunity when it comes. If you have that alertness, you are vigilant, “steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord” (I Corinthians 15:58). You must be planted in the Lord and ready to watch for your opportunity. This is the difference between those who walk with God and those who do not.
Those who do not walk with God are continually distracted by many little problems and situations. They always seem to be working on projects which have little meaning. But those who do the will of God are always seeking what He wants them to do each day. Performing a menial task may seem like an insignificant ministry, but it could be a factor in keeping your brother on his feet, and as a result, down the road he may become a prophet. Seek whatever you are to do each day, and you will have a sense of values to recognize what is important.
You are living your life today. Do not wait for the crowds to throng to some huge stadium, and then expect to give people the Word of the Lord in which they will all rejoice. Stop your dreaming, because that will never come to pass. Even if it could happen within the course of ten years, if you are diligent now you will reach more people during those years than you could reach in a big stadium. As you watch for every opportunity, God will lead you to each person who is to be given a Word from Him. Look for your every opportunity with a desire to please the Lord and to do His will. When the mantle of anointing is on you, and you are commissioned to a ministry, all you need is to look for the opportunity to fulfill it.
Men of great ability have failed, while men with very mediocre talents and abilities have risen to great heights of success and accomplishment. Some say success is due to persistence, but there is little difference between persistence and the awareness that you are living your life now and that you have an opportunity now. Do not say, “I am about to live.” Live now! Do not plan to do the will of God somewhere down the road. Do the will of God now! Today can be a very exceptional day for you to walk in “the good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Romans 12:2). If you do it today, you can do it tomorrow. And if you do it tomorrow, you can do it next week.
Your greatest encouragement will come when you throw off the false hope that things will fall into place eventually. It does not matter what happens to your circumstances. You have an opportunity today to walk in faith. Today you should believe and do everything that is another door before you for the Kingdom of God to come forth.
Parents sometimes become so busy that they neglect their children and do not take time to enjoy them. One of the greatest tragedies is that of not enjoying your children while you can. Children change rapidly in six-months’ time, and by then they may be beyond learning things that you can teach them easily now. Learning is more difficult later. You are living your life now. Do not let your little children wander around without the bond and the contact you can give them. Enjoy your precious little children now while you can, and then you will enjoy them more later.
Fulfillment seems to come to the man who has such awareness and wisdom that he takes advantage of all that God sets before him each day. Every talent, every opportunity, every place of ministry is his to walk in now. Let us all have this wisdom to walk in every living Word that God is speaking to us in this hour.
Stop living your days by habit or by expediency. When you live by an expediency of duties which you must perform, you drag through a routine. Open your heart and expect something wonderful to happen today because you believe God. Then God will say in His heart, “I will not waste a single minute of that man’s life; I will place before him opportunities to serve Me.” And that is the name of the game—He is the Lord, and we are His bond servants.
Suppose that you take a step of faith, thinking it is an opportunity, but you fail. Even in the secular world this happens over and over again. Men of success often have a record of many failures behind them, but they would rather make mistakes than miss an opportunity.
Abraham Lincoln failed at many things he tried to do. He was defeated in his first try for the legislature; he was a failure in business. He had several major failures before he became one of our greatest presidents. Our country inherited fantastic blessings because of his faithfulness. He seized opportunities. At times he gave orders for things over which others said he could lose his reputation as the president. He said that if doing his best turned out wrong, then ten thousand angels swearing on a stack of Bibles that he was right would not make any difference in the verdict of history. But if he was doing right, there would never be any need for justification. Let us have this same motivation and dedication.
Perhaps you have taken a step spiritually and wondered, “How will it all work out? Will I be sort of mediocre? Could I have done just as well if I had not taken this step?” The step you take is not to become an issue. There are many opportunities, but few people grab hold of them. The opportunity will not automatically appear in your hand. Watch for the right moment and grab it. The Lord is setting before you opportunity after opportunity. The tragedy is that some people do not see the opportunities they have today. Waiting for something to come is often the deterrent of faith. Reach into God with all your heart every day that you live.
You can become almost passive in seeing how long you can stand on your feet and take a beating, especially if you think you are enduring the chastening and the dealings of the Lord. When you go through spiritual battles, you are to be so stirred in your spirit that you are the aggressor. Most of the battles are won when you hit first. This is the only way to fight. Hit first! Hit first and keep hitting. Keep right at it.
Too often we feel we are exercising faith, when actually we are passive. We encourage ourselves to keep on “grinning and bearing it.” This should not be the issue. Even under assault we should take every objective we can take today. We must not neglect to do that which is important.
Your future expands when you are diligent to faithfully walk with God each day. Faith and anticipation drive you to live with Him every day. Do not be given to a lot of details to see how much you can do today. See how much you can walk in the express will of God today. Constantly look for Him to lead you, and suddenly a breakthrough will come. You may be swinging a hammer when suddenly a gift of the Spirit comes. You may be doing a very menial chore, but your heart is so set on God that you have a breakthrough; a revelation comes from the Lord.
The teaching that God is bringing us today in His living Word is designed for an active walk with Him now. His Word is not a doctrine of the “sweet by-and-by,” nor is it a “pie-in-the-sky” attitude. The living Word of God teaches us that the second coming of the Lord is His presence (Parousia), in which He comes first to be glorified in His saints and to be admired in all who believe (II Thessalonians 1:10). A rapture will probably take place eventually (I Corinthians 15:52; I Thessalonians 4:16–17), but let us emphasize the present—right now! Let us believe that He will come to us now as the rain (Hosea 6:3). He can bless us and meet our hearts now.
Today God is speaking to us about the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and He is teaching us to submit to His Lordship right now, not just in the future when He will be manifested as Lord over all. The Lordship of Jesus Christ must become effective and real in our lives every day as we have a day-by-day submission. All that we do should be based on every living Word we have heard from God. Every truth He has taught us, and every attribute He has ever put within us, should be at His disposal to use today.
You may not have much. You may say, “I am not a genius; I cannot move the world.” Look in your lunch basket. Maybe you have five loaves and two small fishes, which would be enough in the Lord’s hands to feed a multitude. There is always that opportunity. Children carry their lunches today much the same as children carried their lunches in Jesus’ day. How many children carried their lunches into the wilderness that particular day of the miracle feeding? One child there was aware and seized that opportunity.
Miracles do not happen sovereignly; they are snagged by pilgrims who are on a dead run. When you need a miracle, reach out and grab it because God will set the opportunity before you that very day. Remember this Kingdom proverb: The things you do which will stand for time and eternity will be done in the hour when you make time serve you. Grab it!
The apostle Paul had a limited, restricted, fixed focus on the Lord. The Lord was all he wanted to see. The Lord’s Word was all he wanted to speak. Whatever you do, be sure that the Lord is in it. If you read a book, be sure it is what He wants you to know. If you just drift and browse through various newspapers, magazines, and books, they may lead you nowhere. God will bring forth reality to you as the important things for Him are done.
Live with all of your heart. Be diligent to see His purposes fall in place quickly for His glory. Reach in with faith to walk with Him today. Do everything you can possibly do today, looking for the opportunity to serve in the Spirit, rather than laboring in the flesh just to keep busy. Be effective! Bring all of your life into subjection to the Lord! Walk in His will now!