“For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”
2 Timothy 4:6–7 (NKJV)
On the Same Day
They both died about twelve hours apart. One had been on a ventilator for a week after suffering a heart attack and brain damage due to oxygen deprivation. The other passed struggling to breath due to lung damage from years of smoking and struggles from time in the military.
One was a man who essentially had no formal education and struggled to read but had graduated summa cum laude from the school of hard knocks. He had quit school at a much too young of an age and went to work to provide for his family because his alcoholic father - when he did enough work to get paid - drank up everything he made. So, he chose to work and provide for the bare essentials his mother and seven siblings needed to live.
The other was a man who got a formal education, even got his college degree in a time when many didn’t, and he too worked hard to provide for his family well. One passed without much as far as material things go and the other passed better off financially but both died very, very wealthy men. How so?
True Wealth
When they died, they died trusting in Jesus after years of faith in Him and service to Him. They died surrounded by the greatest wealth any man can have in his world: people who loved and respected them --- wives, children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, friends, church family, all who were grieved by their pain and passing but NOT for them. After years of faithfully serving and following Jesus, when the date of Dec. 15, 2024 was filled in after their dash, those same people who loved and respected them gathered together to mourn and celebrate two lives lived well.
Regrets?
We talk about regrets in MD5. Did these two men have some? I’m sure they did. We all have some but they had a bucket load instead of a dump truck load. We all have a few regrets but real men, biblical men, face their problems while they live and do not carry them to their graves. We know that truth - you know that truth - and these two men lived that truth.
My life was blessed by these men. I knew them, served with them, loved them, got to be their pastor for years. And while they walked very different paths in life, they both died and died well. Your path may be nothing like these men’s path or it may be very similar but it doesn’t matter what track God places us in to run, what matters is how well we run and how well we finish. You know the verses and you know them well:
2 Timothy 4:6–7 (NKJV)
"For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."
Paul doesn’t sound like a man who was facing death with any regrets; he faithfully fought and finished his race well. These men I’ve shared about had paths that were different but their finish lines were the same. How are you running? How are you finishing? Let’s do both well and strive to die as true godly men who are surrounded by the greatest wealth any man can have.
RALI on brothers.
Mike Book
MD5 Facilitator
コメント