My Life – February 17, 2020

The LORD is your life.
Deuteronomy 30:20

My Life

You are a young, adult male―nineteen years old. Through good coaching and hard work, your basketball skills have just given you a contract in the National Basketball Association. You are about to enter a world radically different from the world you have known. It will be different because this new world does not involve just basketball. This new world involves media, being a celebrity, agents, and sponsors. It involves threats to your privacy, constant travel, and suddenly possessing more money than you’ve ever seen before. And it involves all the temptations that go along with it.

It is for these reasons that the NBA insists that, before you enter this world, you get together with all the other rookies for four intensive days of listening and learning. In these four days, Hall-of-Fame players and other mentors sit down with you to impress upon you not only the things that matter but also warn about those things that can ruin your career and life.

When Moses wrote the book of Deuteronomy, the Lord was about to bring the people of Israel into their new home―the Promised Land of Canaan. Before he did, however, he gathered them together for some intensive days of listening and learning. This new land was prosperous and rich, a land “flowing with milk and honey.” But there was something else. It was also a land where they would face temptations and distractions―from the distractions of a prosperous life to the temptations of a pleasure-obsessed culture, to their own sinful tendency to lose focus. God knew how easy it would be for his people to forget what mattered. And so he reminded them, “The LORD is your life.”

God tells you and me the same thing. Your life rests in the One who created you. Your life rests in the One who went to the cross on your behalf, to wash you clean of your every wrong―including all the times we have turned our priorities into ugly chaos. Your life rests in the One who promises to guide even your dark and bitter moments for your good.

So, remember, the Lord is your life.

Prayer:
Lord Jesus, you are my life. Forgive my forgetfulness. Remind me of what matters. Amen.