Blogger Note: Our church elders kindly agreed to purchase the book Don’t Waste Your Life (Crossway) by John Piper for the young adults in our church. This is a letter I wrote to our young adults to go along with the book. It is a personal plea that echoes Dr. Piper’s book. I am posting it here because, like Dr. Piper, I do not believe that this call is for teens and young adults only. It is for everyone, including retired people hunting for seashells. If you do not know the reference read the book to find out. I highly recommend this book to anyone, in any stage of life. You can find your copy here.1
July 21, 2024
Dear Sibling in Christ,
This book changed my life years ago when I first read it. I have recently picked it up again, and it is again sharpening my eternal perspective.
As your pastor, I do not want to waste my life or see you waste your life.
A wasted life can take on many forms. It may be getting addicted to drugs, beating your spouse, being lazy, binging on movies and video games, going full tilt into the sexual immorality of the world, or openly abandoning Christianity and living for the world.
We all know we don’t want to be there. But the deceptive thing about a wasted life is that it can look far different than what I just described. It can look like being highly intelligent, getting a good education, being a great athlete, landing an awesome career, having a beautiful family, living in a nice house, driving a nice car, attending church each week, putting money in the offering box, having a great retirement, and peacefully passing away in your sleep.
That may surprise you, but did you notice what was missing in both scenarios? A deep, joyful, and intense love for God. A relationship with God as your Father. A delight in the joys of King Jesus and his Gospel. Fellowship with the Holy Spirit that is deep and lasting. An absolute abandon of personal interests and safety for the sake of the Lord Jesus’ Kingdom. Without these, you will waste your life, no matter how great or not-so-great your life appears to you or others.
There are brothers and sisters in Christ dying in dangerous and forgotten parts of the world today who have a sincere desire to love and serve the Lord Jesus and take his name to despised places. There are Christians that have literally lost everything for the Lord Jesus, as Jesus said when he told his disciples to take up their cross and follow him (Luke 14:25-33). Their lives are not wasted.
There are individuals who look like they are living their dream. They even give Jesus some time on their Sunday mornings. But they are wasting their lives. While the appearance looks great and they are doing things that seem good, their hearts are lifeless, rotten, and dead with no love for Christ.
This does not mean that the normal and mundane cannot be for Jesus’ glory. That’s the biggest way we serve Jesus in our lives. Most of our lives are taken up with doing the same old things every day. We serve him doing the normal, boring, everyday stuff. The question is, will you faithfully serve Jesus and his purpose in the mundane or serve yourself?
You only have one life to live. That’s it. You will not get a second shot. You will not get to go back. How will you live it? Truly for Christ? Or as a show and for yourself?
Maybe Jesus’ plan for your future is not to live in the United States and have that impressive career and dream life. Perhaps, he will lead you to the mission field, maybe even to a closed country where you could die for Jesus. Have you ever considered that possibility? In our time and culture, I would not be surprised if no one ever asked you to consider that. What an awesome privilege it would be!
He may not call you to the mission field. He may have determined to keep you in this town for the rest of your life, to give you a decent job, and to have you serve him in this church until he comes or calls you home.
Either way, on the mission field or at home, will you joyfully live the life that Christ has called you to for his glory or will you live for yourself? As you can see from the scenarios above, this is something that people can fake. That’s true for missionaries and pastors, too. The only way to genuinely live for Jesus is by God’s grace.
As your pastor, I must be honest with you. I would rather die for the Lord Jesus’s glory and rejoice for all eternity than to waste my life and look back in my old age over my years of ease with regret!
These next words are hard. I cried; I wept as I wrote them:
I would prefer stand by your graveside because you died in Jesus’ service and say the words:
“He loved Jesus with all his heart and served him with joy all the way to the end! What joy he has now with the Lord he loves so much! What a life well lived! Praise the Lord Jesus for this redeemed and well-spent life!”
I’d rather comfort your sorrowing parents with the words:
“Your child was radically in love with Jesus! This makes that future Day of Jesus’ coming all the sweeter! There are souls who will be there because the Lord used your child to take the Good News to them! What a way to go!”
I’d rather do that than watch you have a life of ease and “success” that will only lead to regret, and maybe worse, the realization that you never actually knew the Lord at all (Matthew 7:21-23).
Here is a quote from this book you hold in your hand:
“If you live gladly to make others glad in God, your life will be hard, your risks will be high, and your joy will be full… Some of you will die in the service of Christ. That will not be a tragedy. Treasuring life above Christ is a tragedy” (John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life, p. 10).
Please read this book and do so with an open Bible. Look up the references. Read it thoughtfully and slowly so you can soak up the truth and be changed by it. Please let me know what you think. Let me know how God uses this study for his glory and your good.
It is my desire, in whatever Christ calls you to do, that you do it with all your might and the strength God supplies to glorify and enjoy the Lord Jesus. I mean that. I will do anything and everything I can to see that happen! My wife has this same desire and commitment as well. We are here for you in any way we can help you live for and delight in the Lord Jesus.
This book is the kind gift of the elders at my request for young adults in our church. May Christ receive all the glory and bring in a harvest that will make the gates of hell shake because you read it.
In the Service of King Jesus, your pastor and friend,
Bill Whittington
- I am recommending this book because it has personally helped me. I do not receive any compensation for recommending this to you. ↩︎
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