Life Is Short

Live It Well

Welcome to Scripture Saturday, I am your host for today and it is my pleasure to share God’s message with you all. So if you have been tuning in (if you haven’t, then please check out our other devotions) to The Faith Filled Friends this past week you may have noticed a theme. It was not planned by us, but by God because we have literally all been doing each others songs and similar devotions!

The talk of the town is ‘Life Is Beautiful‘ and it truly is. If we were to name this so called series, that would be the name of it because it just sums it up! So we have listened to The Afters (one of my top 5 favourite bands)and we have listened to Building 429 (one of my top 5 favourite bands, super underappreciated). But we can’t forget Tenth Avenue North and Petra who have also played a part in this series. So who else could we possibly have today, other than the awesome Switchfoot with “Live It Well”. It’s a beautiful song that features on their album and Wow Hits 2017, life is short so check it out… Life is short, lets get into it!

Live It Well- Switchfoot

‘…Take the burden from my arms, Take the anchors off my lungs, Take me broken and make me one, Break the silence and make it a song…’

We can often forget that God is the God of the Impossible! He formed all things, speaking all of creation into being, breathing life into our lungs. Surely, He can make us whole! We can feel an undeserving of God’s love, His Grace, because we sin, because we stuff up, but Jesus bled and died for you and for me. God never planned on leaving us broken, but the plan from the very beginning was to make us whole so we could live life to the full.

Psalm 144:4- Man is like a breath; His days are like a passing shadow.

James 4:14- Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

It may seem quite daunting, your life is just slowly passing away, like a shadow, like a cloud. We may feel like our life is pointless if it is just like a passing cloud but that doesn’t mean you can’t make a difference. Heck no! Clouds are mostly forgotten, yes, but some aren’t. The ones that shake the Earth and pour out across the land, the ones that light up the dark and the ones that tear people away from others. I know being compared to a massive Hurricane storm doesn’t sound great, but God has some pretty awesome analogies.

Storms cause people to fear and take cover. People run from storms the escape the winds and the lightning it brings. It pours down on everything with everything! If I am a cloud I want to be a storm cloud. A cumulonimbus. When I pass I want my life to have made a difference, to have had an impact. I want to be an Earth Shaker, a Game Changer just living for God. I want to pour out with everything, pour out with love and joy want water the barren lands bringing life and hope! People will run and try to escape from my overflow but when we give with everything there is no escape. My winds will tear people apart and it will cause pain but this pulling away is not bad. It is you pulling the people out of their comfort and safety and into the crazy love Jesus pours out.

Sorry this is turning into a long analogy! I am loving it. So I quickly research cumulonimbus clouds and this one line caught my eye and my heart. “…largest of all clouds usually extends through all three cloud regions. Even the smallest cumulonimbus cloud dwarfs its neighbours in comparison.” Christians are the cumulonimbus clouds, the big ones that overflow and people fear. But lets move a little bit away from that and look at our lives all as passing clouds. There are three different cloud regions; the first being atheists. So you get the Atheist, people who don’t believe in a god, the Anti-theist, people who believe religion is harmful and are against it, and the Agnostic, people who don’t know about religion and don’t want to think or talk about it- so not anti religion. Region two is the Religious. This is a tricky one because it is everyone that believes in, lets say, a “god” or being of some kind with power. It includes the other beliefs and the religions. The final region, number three is the Lost & Confused. People who once knew Jesus but have walked away. People who consider themselves Christians but don’t know God. This includes people who come to church but lack the relationship with God. As Christians, we want to be crazy, radical believers. We want to, “…extend through all three cloud regions.” Lets not sit back and let life pass by, because with faith and the Holy Spirit even the shyest and quietest person can reach every type of region. We can change the world if we just let God’s love grow in us until we can’t help but overflow and pour out on the barren wasteland.

2 Samuel 14:14- For we will surely die and become like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. Yet God does not take away a life; but He devises means, so that His banished ones are not expelled from Him.

God has made a way for us to be saved. This is not the final destination as God prepares a kingdom in heaven for us. Life is too short to live like peoples opinion matters. You are priceless to God and when you live free you please God. God gives life, shouldn’t we just Run Wild, Live Free, Love Strong? Let’s live like we are on borrowed time because life is a gift, every breath is a gift.

‘…Life is short; I wanna live it well. One life, one story to tell. Life is short; I wanna live it well, And you’re the one I’m living for. Awaken all my soul, Every breath that you take is a miracle. Life is short; I wanna live it well, yeah…’

Come on guys. Let’s live free, because life is such a miracle and we only have one life here. We only have one shot. We don’t have to waste time fearing or worrying, about a job, what to study, or how our exams will go! God is in control, we just need to give Him control. So ask yourself again, “What If I Gave Everything?”

Live It Well (Acoustic Version)- Switchfoot

So to end, I would love to share this last song with you. It is of course a Jason Gray song. He always ends up getting a short devotion closer. He is really great, and you should check his music out. Remember to go out and get these albums if you like what you hear, just to support the Christian Music industry. So thank you for your time and your support. We are all really grateful. But we really have to thank Jesus, for the opportunity to be a storm on this Earth, for the opportunity to be a light and to speak to all of you through these devotions. Jesus we give you all the praise and all the glory. You set me free and now I can live a beautiful life. Thank you for my friends and my family, thank you for every breath. Thank you for Grace that gives me a second chance. Jesus, I am so grateful. Amen.

Jesus We Are Grateful- Jason Gray

The Faith Filled Friends