Nov 13, 2018

Really Live

                                            
 
“Every man dies. Not every man really lives.” 
~ William Wallace, Braveheart (The Movie)

Braveheart movie fans remember moments before his execution when William Wallace’s corrects his lover, the Princess of France, as she makes a futile attempt to convince him to recant and receive the more painless execution by decapitation. 
Wallace rejects her attempts to sway him with, “Every man dies. Not every man really lives.” 
The result of death is still death. Or, like a hunting buddy once said, “Overkill is still dead.” 
I’m committed to being a man who truly lives. I don’t want a busy life. I don’t want a soft life. I don’t want the mundane life of the sloth. I want something better. I want it all—every bit of what God has to offer. I want “life …abundantly." (John 10:10)  
I don’t want to be marked with those who Teddy Roosevelt called, “cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” 
Do you?
Tony Campolo said it rightly, “Instead of people praying, ‘If I die before I wake,’ they should pray, ‘If I wake before I die.’”
Take a look in the back of your “paper” Bible.
 It might have a map in the back titled, “Palestine in the Day of Jesus.” Look at the eastern border of Israel you’ll see the Jordan River. Follow the river south until it dumps into the Dead Sea. Notice that the Dead Sea has no outlet. 
Nothing lives. There’s no outflow. The water holds up, stagnates, and is dead. 
Live. Pour your life into a cause that’s higher than you. Don’t be like so many stagnant males with no outflow to their lives. 
Their lives are mundane, selfish, dead. Many profess to be “Christian” men yet spend hour upon hour living through false realities like video games, social media relationships, television, and other addictive behaviors. 
They’re more the rule than the exception. Like a child’s dirty bath water they’ve forfeited their lives for something less, false—dead. 
Be a better man. Live in the minority, as a man fully alive. Become your best version.