ONE MONTH TO LIVE?

The new teaching series we're diving into during October called "One Month to Live" really settled in with me last week. I was teaching for a spiritual renewal week at a church near Richmond, VA. The pastor there, Bill Wines, took me on a tour of two incredibly historical sites. One was the Hollywood Cemetary in which three Presidents and hundreds of Civil War casualties are buried. The other was the site of the Battle of Cold Harbor in which tens of thousands of young men died as the South defended Richmond against the Union army's advance.

Strolling through such a historical cemetary reminded me that we are all "terminal." But it was seeing the trenches dug by Confederate soldiers on the battle field at Cold Harbor that really brought this reality home to me. The trenches in which young men fought and dead are still there! You could almost hear the bullets, smell the cannon smoke, and see the bodies of dead soldiers. It was a sobering moment to gaze upon those trenches, dug by young soldier's hands. For many, they were digging their own graves.

The Psalmist writes, "You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man's life is but a breath" (Psalm 39:5).

I'm not tyring to to be a downer, but it's important for us to grasp the reality of our own mortality. Why? Because when we realize that fact that we are terminal -- last time I checked the death rate for humans is one out of one, a full 100% -- it makes a difference in the way we live!

Tim McGraw sings a song called, "Live Like You Were Dying." It tells the story of a man in his 40's who is diagnosed with a terminal illness. When a friend asks him how he responded to that news the man says, "I went skydiving, I went rocky mountain climbing, I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu. And I loved deeper. And I spoke sweeter. And I gave forgiveness I'd been denyin'," and he said, "Some day I hope you get the chance, to live like you were dyin'."

What difference would it make in your life today if you knew you had only one month to live? What would you do? Who would you see? What would you make right in your life? This life is brief. But God is clear that there's an eternity to come and where we spend it will be determined by how we spend this life.

I'm ready to live like I was dying...how about you?