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Ring of Truth provides 366 daily ‘proofs’ that the Bible is consistent throughout from Genesis to Revelation, and relevant for our lives today!
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Ecclesiastes 12:1
Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, “I find no pleasure in them.”
I am delighted that ‘our’ church ‘bucks the trend’. Someone has to.
Statistics taken from around the world suggest that most people accept Christ as their Saviour between 6 – 16 years of age, give or take a year or two. Most of the people being saved in our church are well over that. Which is just as well, because there are so many in our country and so many coming to our country who don’t know anything about Jesus, and who are far from teenagers. Yes, of course we need to ‘beef-up’ both the children’s and youth ministries, but I am not going to slacken off on my ‘adult’ ministry, just to satisfy the statistics, nor dare I say it – this verse.
Verses 2–7 give a pictorial glimpse of the ageing process of the body until it finally returns to the dust from which it came, “and the spirit returns to God who gave it” (v 7).
There is life after death and we all have to appear before God and give Him an account of what we have done. It’s a ‘Ring of Truth’! As the chapter ends, “Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep His commandments for this the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgement, including every hidden thing whether it is good or evil” (v 13–14).
As we have seen so often already, we are responsible for all our words and actions. We are not victims; we are choosers and we are both responsible and accountable to God. (See also Matthew 12:36 & Romans 14:12.)
That is why I have chosen today’s verse. The Christian Life is worth living if for no other reason than it is less complicated. Have you noticed? You cannot tell just one lie? Multiply that by years of experience and challenges and you soon realise why people come for counselling. Those who accept Christ while they are young and learn to live in righteousness and truth find their lives are not only joyful, peaceful and fulfilling, but they are far less stressful and a whole lot less complicated. They are free from having to try and remember what they said to whom, why and when. Or as I heard someone say – “You don’t need to ‘remember’ truth.”
On top of all that, they learn to have an ever-deepening relationship with God as their Father, which has value beyond calculation. It is the greatest of all privileges.
Having counselled people for many years – one thing I have become very aware of is this – without God life becomes increasingly complicated.
So learn to love and serve God as a child and life will be far less complicated, far less stressful, and far more fulfilling. Plus there is less to be accountable for – because we are then accountable only for what we do as a Christian.
Otherwise, it becomes increasingly difficult for us to accept Christ, as we live our lives our own way, without Him, and do not want to give over control to Him – to Someone we do not know. We also find that our pride gets in the way and when we finally surrender and accept Him as our Lord and Saviour, we experience an awful sense of a wasted life without Christ.
So, seek and invite God into your life while you are still a youth – or as soon as possible - you’ll never regret it.
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