Echoes From the Campfire

He watched one man prove that stupidity can’t be cured, and it can often be fatal.”
                    –Lou Bradshaw  (Spirit Valley)

       “So teach us to number our days, That we may cultivate and bring to You a heart of wisdom.”
                    –Psalm 90:12 (Amplified)
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“Woe is me,” come the voices of humanity.  “Woe, I am lost and undone,” is the cry of those without direction, without Christ.  Man tries in vain to find his own way in life and it is impossible for he cannot find his true purpose without Jesus Christ.  Some of the saddest things of a human life–the errors which divert men from their true aim, and plunge them into various and growing misery.  Anyone on the threshold of death will look back at their accumulations and wonder…
       The “Preacher,” the writer of Ecclesiastes puts forth this question:

                    “What profit has a man from all his labor in which he toils under the sun?” –Ecclesiastes 1:3 (NKJV)

                    “What profit has man left from all his toil at which he toils under the sun?  [Is life worth living?]”  –Ecclesiastes 1:3 (Amplified)

At the end of your life will you be able to thank God for all He has done for you?  Or has life been wasted in selfish ambition and self-indulgence?  The man who believes that he has a wasted life is to be pitied.  He has had the wrong perspective all the days of his life.  G. Campbell Morgan said, “This man has been living through all these experiences under the sun, concerned with nothing above the sun…until there came a moment in which he had seen the whole of life.  And there was something over the sun.  It is only as man takes account of that which is over the sun as well as that which is under the sun that things under the sun are seen in their true light.”
       People lose their eternal soul–living for the wrong things.  It is only when we do things for the kingdom of God, when we look at life with eternity in view do you truly accomplish something.  Buildings, fame, power, lustful living, seeking the “good life” all of these things are naught for they are pleasures under the sun.  We seek a home that is beyond the sky, a home whose building and maker is the Lord God.  Hmmm, are the nails you hear being driven in gloryland belonging to your mansion?
       Charles Swindoll said, “We who worship our work and play at our worship have gotten things all fouled up.”  Man will be at a ballgame, or a concert, or, at the hunting camp or fishing lodge rather than in church.  Then they will say that he can worship outside the walls of a church.  Bah, in that context it is nothing but an excuse.  True, one should be able to worship wherever they are but when they use that as an excuse they are living under the sun.
       What works of your hands are priceless?  Stop, take inventory.  Contemplate the following:

                    “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?  Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”  
                                      –Matthew 16:26 (NKJV)

                    “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.  I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”
                                      –John 10:10(NKJV)

                    “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”
                                      –1 Corinthians 15:58 (NKJV)

Do you have difficulty discovering answers to the questions of life?  If so, then check your heart.  What profit is there if you do things for self or for the world?  What is there that you will take to the grave with you?  Certainly nothing tangible.  Only what has been done for the kingdom of God will last.  It is deposited in the bank of heaven.  Perhaps this is a time in your life that you need to stop…stop and think of eternity rather than the ballgame.

                    “So teach us to number our days,
                     That we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
                                    –Psalm 90:12 (NKJV)