Lost Your Will to Live?
Mike: “It’s the big game of the season. If I buy the ticket will you change your mind and come?”
Josh: “No, I’m not really interested.”
Sara: “What do you mean you are cancelling your subscription to ‘Luxurious Lifestyles & Living’? You were the one that put me on to that publication – and now you have cancelled yours? Let me sign you up again.”
“Josh: “No, I’m not really interested.”
Chris: “I can hardly focus these days. I check the news tickers constantly to see which party is leading in the polls. On Friday evening our candidate is in town. Her platform seems to be solid, with good moral underpinnings. Can I swing by your house and we’ll head off to the rally?”
Josh: “No, I’m not really interested.”
Dan: “Saturday morning is the annual car show. If we get off work Friday at noon, we could get in by midnight, do the car show and then be back home Saturday night. If you come again this year, I think we’ll have a car load.”
Josh: “No, I’m not really interested.”
Mike, Sara, Chris and Dan having a coffee.
“What is wrong with Josh? I’m really concerned for him. I think he’s lost his will to live anymore. All the things he used to be so pumped over no longer excite him. It seems he could care less about all the stuff we used to enjoy together. I’m worried. He’s off in his own little world – not ours. But I don’t think he is depressed or thinking about harming himself. It is just that his interests have completely changed but, yet, he seems to be quite happy, pleasant and contented. The Josh that we knew seems to have died. I’m giving up on asking him to come anymore. It’s always the same response: “Thanks, but no thanks. I’m not really interested.”
Maybe you’ve put two and two together and you can pin-point Josh’s ‘problem’. It is one of two things: he has either appreciated for the first time what happened on the Cross or he’s been restored to the Lord and has a fresh appreciation for the Cross.
But God forbid that I should glory,
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom the world is crucified unto me,
and I unto the world.
(Galatians 6:14)
When I am enjoying Christ and what He did for me on the Cross – my interest in everything that excites and thrills the non-christians around me takes a nosedive. When a Christian has the Cross before them, the thrilling things of the world look so unattractive, so puny, so shallow and so unappealing. The cross puts to death in me the world and all its glitter, glamour and gladness.
A Christian living in the good of their salvation is alive to Christ and all that is important to HIM and is dead to what is important and exciting to this world. Similarly, the world will look at the Christian and say: “He’s a super guy. I respect him a lot but wow, I sure don’t have much in common with him. We’re just not on the same wave length any more. He’s marching to the beat of a different drummer. We’re not on the same page at all.
Never forget dear child of God, that it was ‘this’ world that nailed our Lord Jesus Christ to the Cross. We were once a part of it but we’ve been delivered from it. Don’t seek to fit back into this world’s culture and mentality. We’re here to see others rescued from it – not to become entangled in it ourselves.
It’s a good thing when we lose our will to live for this world and embrace the Lord’s will to live for Christ and things of eternal significance. We’re to say: “No, I’m not really interested.”
Walk carefully and closely with the Lord today.
Warmly in Christ
Peter Ramsay