What is it that defines or characterizes our life? Is it "moments" in life in which we do something great or something foolish? When we look into the scriptures there are some people about whom much is written while there are others that we only see in one moment, one act of good or evil. Which of these tells us the true character of these people’s lives?

In the cases where we see only one moment in the life of a person, we learn one thing about that person’s life. We learn from Jesus about giving from a poor woman who gave just two small coins at the temple, but Jesus tells us that she gave all she possessed. We see one period of the life of the prophet Jonah, a period with some large "ups" and "downs" in service to God, but what was the rest of his life like? Saul was the first king of Israel and at first was a good king who was faithful to God. But the last part of his life was a tragedy of sin. We know much about the lives of David and his son, Solomon. Both were devoted to God, but both sinned. David repented of his sins but Solomon apparently did not.

So, what does God look at in our life? Moments of great faithfulness, service and sacrifice? Or does He look at our whole life? Of course He looks at our whole life. Others have said that the Christian life is not a hundred-yard dash, but it is more like a marathon. We must be "faithful unto death," not just faithful once in a while! We will have different opportunities for service during a lifetime but we must be serving in some way all of our life.

In one sense our Christian life is not like a race of any kind in that we cannot see the finish line. None of us knows the day we will die or the day the Lord will come back again. James says, "Why you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is you life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes" (James 4:14).

What defines our lives before God is the sum total of how we live before Him, and if we remain faithful to Him. We cannot say to ourselves that we did some great things in the past so now we will take our rest and let others serve. Jesus said, "To him who overcomes and does My will to the end, I will give authority over the nations" (Rev. 2:26).

Our whole life must be like the "sheep" in Matthew 25 who were so used to serving that they did not know when they had served the Lord by serving other people. It was simply their way of life, all their life! Yes, we may have some moment in life when we have the opportunity to do something that might be on a par with the widow giving all she had, but even if we do, that one deed cannot be substituted for life-long, faithful service.

-- Wayne Sharp