A Beautiful Life

Each day I’ll do a golden deed

By helping those who are in need;

My life on earth is but a span

So I will do the best I can.

Life’s evening sun is sinking low;

A few more days and I must go

To reap the deeds that I have done

Where there will be no setting sun.

            This is an old hymn that my mother loved, and she lived it. Before she got ill a few years ago, she tried each day to do something special for someone else. She always helped those in need, and never gave up. She did the best she could. She lived her faith.

Have you ever known someone that states he is a Christian but his actions offer little evidence?  On the other hand. have you ever known a person that quietly reaches out to others without any fanfare? His life speaks of his faith! John Wesley believed that faith should be lived and shown in our actions. James, the brother of Jesus, agreed. “As the body without the spirit is dead,” he inscribed, “so faith without deeds is dead” (James 2:26). The worth of my faith is revealed in ministry, and discloses the value of my relationship with Christ. 

“‘For I was hungry’ Jesus said, ‘and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me'” (Matthew 25:35-36). If faith without works is dead, then faith applied as Jesus spoke in these verses is definitely alive. We are to share compassion, because of the sacrificial compassion Jesus had for us. True compassionate ministry is born of sacrifice, and recognizes the costly price Jesus paid so that it might be rendered.

Jesus had the greatest compassion toward me. How can I not have the greatest compassion toward others?  I want to live His compassion expecting nothing in return. My mother’s evening sun has gone down never to set again. She lived a beautiful life, and now she lives eternally with her Savior. I, too, want to live a beautiful life. Perhaps one day, I also will hear, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”