1,000 Marbles
“But I am (concerned
or frightened), fearing that in some way you will be led away from your pure
and simple devotion to our Lord…” (2 Corinthians 11:3 – TLB).
We often complicate
the things of the Bible and make them harder than they need to be. When we boil it all
down, it really is pretty simple. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist, or
have a doctorate, masters, bachelors, associate degree, or even a high school diploma
to know Jesus. As someone once said, “ Keep it simple, sir. Or, to put it more
kindly, “Keep it simple, sweetie.” Only one
thing deserves level one priority in our lives. That leads us
to
the main idea of the message today.
Years ago, a great insight came to a
man which he described as the theory of a "thousand marbles." He wrote, “You see, I sat down one
day and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about seventy-five
years. I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live
about seventy-five years. Now then, I multiplied
75 times 52 and I came up with 3900 which is the number of Sundays that the
average person has in their entire lifetime. Now stick with me I’m getting to
the important part.It took me until I was 49 years old to think about all this in
any detail”, he went on, “and by that time I had lived through over
twenty-eight hundred Sundays. I got to thinking that if I lived to be
seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy. So I went to a toy store and bought every
single marble they had. I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round-up
1000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside of a large, clear plastic
container right here in the shack next to my gear. Every Sunday since then, I
have taken one marble out and thrown it away. I found that by watching the
marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life. There
is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your
priorities straight."
The
Bible says that you were made in God's image.
That makes you
different from animals. The animals are
not made in God's image but human beings were. That means God has given you a
capacity He has not given animals. That is the capacity to know God and to love
Him. Animals can’t do that. You’ll never see a dog or cat or a cow or a
horse praying. They were not given that
capacity.You, though, were made in God's
image so you could commune, communicate, have a relationship with God. If you don’t ever develop that in your life
you have missed the reason for being a human.
You have wasted your life.
Because to be a human means to be made in God's image which means I have
the ability and capacity to get to know God on personal basis.
God
has revealed His plan even in more detail. “God's unchanging plan has always been to
adopt us into His own family by bringing us to Himself through Jesus
Christ. And this gave Him great
pleasure.”
When we love Him above everything
else, when we love Him supremely, that brings God pleasure. This
is very clear in the Bible. “But I am (concerned or frightened), fearing
that in some way you will be led away from your pure and simple devotion to our
Lord…” (2 Corinthians 11:3 – TLB). Paul was constantly challenging the early
church to get back to the basics of their relationship with God
We live in a complicated culture yet here
are two things God wants more than anything else from You. He wants you to know Him and He wants you to
love Him. If you miss that you miss the point of life.
That’s what God wants from you. He made
you to know Him, to be loved by Him and to love Him back.
As a good way of remember, you might
want to pick up one, two or three thousand marbles and count one each week.
It will remind us that life is a gift and that God has created us to
love Him….one day at a time.
Terry Risser
Reflections:
1) Why do we find ourselves getting off course
in our worship of God?
2) How can we get back on course?
Consider reading the Word today:
Copyright 2014- Terry
Risser
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