Around this time of the year, I give more thought as to what I’ll leave behind once this life on earth is completed.

This morning I heard a couple of others talking about what is most important in their lives and no one mentioned a successful career. In fact, they mentioned everything else as having more importance in life, so why do we invest so much into something with little lasting value?

How would you sum up your life at this point? Hopefully we all have many years ahead, but do you have the confidence Paul expressed in the verse we looked out yesterday?

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.

2 Timothy 4:7-8

After Paul met the risen Christ on his way to Damascus, he never turned back, never failed to honor Christ, and never attempted to stand on his own.

When Paul stood before King Agrippa he said, “To this day I have had the help that comes from God, and so I stand here testifying both to small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would come to pass: that the Christ must suffer and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles.”
Acts 26: 22-23

Paul’s dependence is clear again in his encouragement to the believers in Ephesus to “take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm”(Ephesians 6:13).

Think about how your life. How would you explain the difference between standing in your own strength and standing by the strength God gives you day by day?