Christ In You,
The Hope of Glory

June 2022

Dear Partners and Friends,

What IS Your Life?

Consider this; every day we live is another gift from the gracious will of God, who holds our lives in the palm of His hand. Therefore, everything we have or will accomplish in life should find us giving credit and glory to God, not boasting about what we have done on our own. After all, what is my life but a mist that rises and vanishes away?

Because tomorrow is not promised to us, we need to be doing everything well with our lives while we have the chance!

Is there some good deed you have intended to do, but time and the pressures and circumstances of life kept pushing it to the back burner? For example, have you intended to volunteer some time in an area where your involvement could make a difference? Have you been planning to donate to some worthy cause that badly needs that financial gift you have been planning to give but have never gotten around to doing so?

Are there broken relationships that you have been meaning to restore? Act now with a word of apology or a show of forgiveness. Is there some good that you know you should have done by now, but you kept telling yourself that you would get around to it soon – after a while – as soon as you get a specific project out of the way, and so on?

Let’s focus now on the things of God and the life of the soul. Have you been meaning to spend more time in prayer and Bible study? Were you planning to start giving more of your income to the work of the Lord? Were you wondering whether your salvation was secure since your relationship with Christ was so erratic and irregular? “I am going to join the church,” someone says to himself as soon as he can get around to it. “I know I should join the choir or some other auxiliary,” says another busy soul, and I will just as soon as I get a few more things in order.

Does that sound like anyone here today; telling God what you will do for God after you have done everything you need for yourself?

“Yes, Lord, I will take care of your business just as soon as I have taken care of mine.” Who are we, and what are our lives that we should put off until some future date, sometimes a distant date in the future, actions we should have taken care of yesterday? We are a mist that rises and vanishes away. We are a puff of smoke here one minute and completely gone the next.

It is a sin, says James, to know the good things we should be doing but not doing them because we are putting them off for a later time. So perhaps this anonymous poem which seems to fit this moment and this message will bless you.

What is my life?

It is a mist that rises and vanishes away. It is frail and vulnerable. It is not me that keeps my life going; it is the God within me and the God around me and the God beneath my feet.

Thank you, Lord, for reminding me and allowing me to remind others that without you I can do nothing. Finally, thank you for reminding me that “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

Learn a lesson from James and have the humility and the honesty to declare, “I’ve come this far by faith, leaning on the Lord, trusting in His holy word; He’s never failed me yet?”

Thank you, Lord,

Shelia Johnson
Chaplain and President