Don’t live carelessly, unthinkingly. Make sure you understand what the Master wants (Ephesians 5:17, The Message).
You were created to live a life of purpose. God ordained for you a life that will touch others positively and be a plus to your generation. In order to achieve this, today's Scripture verse admonishes "Don’t live carelessly, unthinkingly". Friends, careless living will eventually produce a cheerless future, a frustrated life and a wasted destiny. If you want to have a happy future and a fulfilled life, you must quit living carelessly. Your family life, business and career prospects depend on it. And of course, your eternity depends absolutely on it.
I find too many unthinking people around in the modern world, people who don't consistently engage their mind, people living thoughtlessly. Too many people live for profitless, unedifying and undignifying pleasure, which the Bible says are not even convenient (Romans 1:28). For example, my mind is yet to capture what meaningful pleasure could be in a man sleeping with another man or with a dog when God has not taken women out of the world. Senseless vanities have become the order of the day, and should this trend persists, it's going to really hurt our world in the not too distant future.
One important thing that careful thinking will do for you is that it will bring you into a knowledge of God's purpose for your life - your reason for living. In other words, as our verse for today puts it, you will come to an understanding of what the Master [God] wants. As a preacher and teachers of the Gospel who is in daily interactions with all manner of people, my discovery is that there are just too many people in today's world who live aimless, purposeless and thoughtless lives. Even when some claim to have goals in life, you find that such goals are either frivolous, narrow or selfish. But God has created you and me for greater, better and positive global impact.
Careful thinking about your life and purpose should also bring you to the point of thinking about eternity and your relationship with God. Sadly, for most people in today's world, eternity is not in their thoughts. Yet it is common knowledge that we are not going to be here in this world forever. All human beings have seen people die around them and gone into the world beyond without a chance to return and re-do things. The average person has seen the departure of age mates, older and younger people from this world. But most people still carry on as though life on earth is forever.
I like the story of a man who was personally known to me. One day, as he told me, he sat in his office and thought about life. He thought about religion, after-life, and God. He came to the conclusion that the religious belief he was professing gave no hope of the kind of eternity he felt should be desired. He said to himself, "the Christian faith offers the kind of life and eternity I desire". Thereupon, he rose from his seat and went home to his wife to whom he announced, "henceforth, this family is a Christian family. From today, we cease to practice our former religion".
Thereafter, the man went in search of a place of Christian worship and God, whose heart is ever toward those who seek Him in sincerity guided his feet to a living church where he was shown the way of salvation. To the glory of God, the man eventually went on to Bible College, became an ordained minister, and was studying for his doctoral in theology when he passed on to glory.
"Don’t live carelessly, unthinkingly"!
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