"So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom."
Psalms 90:12
The great English poet William Shakespeare once wrote, "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts…"
Every day when we wake, we face the stage of a lifetime; The chance to make a difference, influence others, and live our God-given purpose in this world with passion. Life is too full of opportunities to hide out backstage in the shadows. God has put too much within us to waste it. We need to make every day count. We have a part to play in this life production and can't lose time sitting in the darkness.
"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light."
1 Peter 2:9
God chose us as His special possession and called us to live in the light. Just like the lights on a stage make a performer shine brightly, allowing the crowd to see them, God's light shines within us for others to see His power.
1. Life is about giving our all as we live up to the call and purposes God has given us.
The crowd's cheers do not measure our performance, but our faithfulness to our God-ordained journey does. We can become easily distracted during our life performance by becoming consumed with other people's opinions and criticism. Everyone will have a point of view about our performance, but we do not answer to them; we answer to God. We cannot allow the critics and naysayers to tear us apart.
2. Never let what others say about you become more important than what God says about you.
Never believe what others say about you over what God says about you. There will always be those that will judge our performance negatively no matter what we do. It will never be good enough for them, nor how they would have done it, or be the "right" way.
The 26th President of our country, Theodore Roosevelt, said this at the Sorbonne lecture in 1910…
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly… who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold timid souls who have… known neither victory nor defeat."
3. We will never be able to perform our very best if we live in fear of the crowd.
We have to outlast our critics and be committed to giving our all to God's purpose for our lives. Critics come and go, but we must live with ourselves at all times. When you truly give your best performance, you can live with the truth that you did your best. Never let the critics control your destiny; let your performance prove your destiny. When you commit to giving your all and performing at your highest level, God will notice, and others will notice and see your faithfulness.
Have a blessed week,
Pastor (Rev. Elias Limones)
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