February 10, 2021

We’ve heard a lot about live your best life now. It’s in pop culture, the church culture and the language of people who want to inspire and motivate. But, what does it really mean to live your best life now? Everyone wants to have a meaning-filled and prosperous life. People pay anywhere from a thousand to $3000 for seminars by big-named motivational speakers who will turn them on to their purpose or encourage them to chase their dream, and they leave with a spring in their step and a determination to build their empire for financial and personal freedom. Maybe they simply tune in to one of the talk shows like Oprah had for years and work their shame, guilt or regrets that have kept them from living their best life now. Certainly, you can find motivational preachers who will pump you up…all for the purpose of helping you find your true north, your dream, your legacy, your purpose for living, your key to personal and financial freedom.

For the majority of the culture who walk a different path from the one Jesus laid out, they want a good life and that’s good, but in the end, amid all the good things they can have and do, everything is done for their benefit, for their glory, for their renown. But, for the follower of Jesus Christ, they want God to direct them and for Him to get the glory in everything they do. So in essence, they can live their best life everyday even when life is not going good, when their marriage is being tested or when their company is down-sized and they lose our job or when their children have issues that are out of their control, when life just snatches away their dreams and they are left with what could have been.

Life is not always easy! But everyday can be greater than we could ever imagine when we look to the path God has laid out in His word and when we faithfully walk down that path expecting nothing in return but having a deep feeling that God is up to something special. I love what C.S. Lewis said in Mere Christianity: “This world is a great sculptor’s shop. We are the statues and there’s a rumor going around the shop that some of us are someday going to come to life.” Your life in Christ is alive and you have the ability to be and do great things that will echo through eternity. Here's 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything. For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.

Here’s the first thing you can be and do to live your best life today:

Determine to Set Good Examples (1:2-10; 4:11-12)

Setting a good example in a biblical context means that you…

1. Give people something to talk about! (Faith, Hope and their Love)

2. Live for Jesus so joyously, so authentically, so contagiously that others cannot help but want to do the same (6-8).

Martin Luther, the great German reformer gave a brief, simple, but expressive eulogy in 1522 for Nicholas Haussmann. Luther said, "What we preach, he lived.” – Nothing will people’s attention more than a person who truly sets a good example in their integrity, their work, their leadership and their home!

 Mark Twain: “Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.”

3. Back up your testimony by showing everyone who truly has your heart and your priorities (9-10)

We live in a culture and society that cannot find their way to God and refuse to search. They live without true sight and have grown accustomed to the dark. Many who have the light do not shine bright enough for them to see anything, but then there is YOU. What can YOU be and do? Can you shine the light of Jesus Christ bright enough for them to see? 

For many years Monterey, a California coast town, was a pelican's paradise. As the fishermen cleaned their fish, they flung the offal to the pelicans. The birds grew fat, lazy, and contented. Eventually, however the offal was utilized, and there were no longer snacks for the pelicans. When the change came the pelicans made no effort to fish for themselves. They waited around and grew gaunt and thin. Many starved to death. They had forgotten how to fish for themselves. The problem was solved by importing new pelicans from the south, birds accustomed to foraging for themselves. They were placed among their starving cousins, and the newcomers immediately started catching fish. Before long, the hungry pelicans followed suit, and the famine was ended.” All by setting the example. You be that example today!

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