We only have one life to make our mark
In the course of doing a bible study for my sermon preparation I came across a Hebrew word for time which gave the definition “to score with a mark as a tally or record”. When you think about it, time (or history) has been marked by the events of people’s lives. The genealogy of Jesus in Matt chapter 1 on the surface is just a list of names that people skip over very quickly when reading (or am I the only one that does that?!)
However if we go back into the Old Testament we can see that these were real people with depth and character, some did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord and some did what was right in the eyes of the lord, some had a good start and a poor finish and others had a bad start and a good finish, but how these people lived their lives marked a period of 2000 years that God scribed in scripture for our learning. Every one of these people lived before Christ and had one life to leave their mark. How about after Jesus was born? Some of the time was measured in scripture by the events of the early Church, people like the Apostle Paul, what a mark he made.
Some of our early Christian father’s made some great marks. The Wesley’s, the Wilberforce’s of this world and much later some of the Pentecostal pioneers like the Jefferies brothers and Wigglesworth and many others have made their mark in time.
How about now? How will time be measured by our generation? What mark am I making? How will time be recorded by my life and our lives together? I am conscious that I want to leave a positive mark and not a stain. By the way we live, whether we are single people or married as husbands, wives and as fathers and mothers serving Christ in all He has for
us to do, I trust that God will make a great mark in 2012 through us that might be worth writing about.
Lets stay focused and positive, and in faith for a great year. What mark is God calling you to make this year? Where is God calling you to be involved? What passions has God placed within your heart? What difference would you like to make?
As I look towards 2012 I am excited about the opportunities that God has placed before us as a Church. Opportunities to make a massive mark in time for the Kingdom of Heaven and a massive dent in the kingdom of darkness.
Have a great new year