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What
Counts?
Soon
after Angi and David's sixth wedding anniversary, the
couple's home burned to the ground.
Angi's first act, when they were allowed to
hunt through the blackened remains, was to search for
their photo albums.
When she went to tell David that the pictures
had indeed survived, she found him carefully placing
in a box some charred, folded pieces of paper -- their
courtship love letters.
"As
I watched David kneeling there in the ashes," she
says, "I was overcome with the certainty that we
were meant for each other.
There, in the face of our greatest tragedy, our
first thoughts were not of our material loss but of
the potential loss of these precious parts of our life
together. As
I knelt to help him with the letters, I was certain
that we hadn't lost anything that mattered after
all." *
“Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count;
everything that counts cannot necessarily be
counted.”
– Albert Einstein
So
what counts? What
matters most?
In
one word: RELATIONSHIPS.
In three words: FRIENDS, FAMILY, and FAITH.
In
Philippians 3, the Apostle Paul enumerates many of the
accomplishments that he attained as a Jew (vs. 4-7). But at the end of the list he wrote: “But what things were
gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ”
(v. 7). Then he explained his new priority:
“Yet indeed I also count ALL things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my
Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things,
and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ {9}
and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness,
which is from the law, but that which is through faith
in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by
faith” (Philippians 3:8-9).
The
Apostle Paul teaches us that in the END, what matters
most is one’s relationship with God through Christ...
Sin
separates us from God (Isaiah 59:1-2) and from
all that is good, right, and eternal.
But God loved us so much that He gave His Son
to die on the cross for our sins, so that we might be
reconciled to Him and live eternally with Him in
heaven (Romans 5:6-10).
We
can be reconciled to God in Christ through: faith
(Acts 16:30-31), turning from our sins in repentance
(2 Corinthians 7:9-10), confessing
Jesus before men (Romans 10:9-10), and being baptized
(immersed) into Christ for the forgiveness of our sins
(Acts 2:38).
Life’s
true meaning is discovered when we focus upon what
truly counts: friends, family, and especially our
relationship with the Father.
What
counts in YOUR life?
David
A. Sargent, Minister
Church
of Christ at Creekwood
1901
Schillinger Rd. S.
Mobile, Alabama 36695
*
Reader's Digest, August, 1982.
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