Amazing Grace

I watched Amazing Grace for the first time today. I have been deeply moved by the passion, courage, perseverence and singleness of mind in William Wilberforce. He didn't waste his life. He had a conviction about how the world should be. He had a gift of speaking and singing that he leveraged unto that conviction. When he was loosing sight of the dream he had a wife that breathed on the lingering spark and inspired him to carry on, a true helpmeet.

Jen and I just last night were directed to John 15. We imagined a life that produced fruits of all different kinds from every action and pursuit it put effort towards. This life when presented before God would arrive with all the fruit it produced. The fruit that was motivated by a love for God and a love for other people, that added to the furthering of God's everlasting Kingdom, that would be "at home" with God forever would remain when tested by the presence of God. But the fruit that represented the pursuit of selfish gain, popularity in the eye's of man, passive comfort, indifferent laziness and prideful disobedience would be burned up and disappear. The life would then be standing there before God with the realization of how it was wasted or how it was leveraged for the eternal purposes of God. The most intense moment and most important moment it will ever experience.

We don't want to waste our lives. In John 15 Jesus says we must remain in him to bear fruit that will last. Remain all day long, every day long, our whole life long. The comforts of the world can be bypassed when I think of the reality of life eternal. Suffering can be endured when I know the fruit will be the kind that lasts forever. We want to stand before Jesus and the kingdom and know that our lives were poured out and counted for part of the beauty that we now see!