Focused on Living

Are you Focused on Living?  Chester Congdon was.  You see Chester lived during the mid 1800’s.  He was a self-educated attorney and a very successful businessman.  His business was mining and lumber in northern Minnesota.  Right after the turn of the century Chester decided to build his dream home just north of Duluth right on the shores of Lake Superior with his wife and six children.  His home was completed in 1908, but there was one problem.  Chester was only able to live in his dream home a few short years before he died.

It doesn’t seem fair does it, that a man could work so hard his whole life and then just when it seems he has it all, it’s all taken away.   Today this happens to people who are the victims of disease, natural disaster, corporate scandal – circumstances beyond their control can rob them of everything they’ve worked for.  It doesn’t seem fair, does it?  We’ll get back to this point in a second.

As the generations continued on, one of the heirs understood the danger the fortune posed to her children.  She didn’t want to give the estate to her descendants so she willed the estate to the University of Minnesota.  The last remaining Congdon child was murdered by her two children before she could give all of her possessions away.  It can turn into a soap opera, but the point is, don’t play the fool and only leave your descendants material possessions.

God will take away all your money, your friends and family for a few years, and all your possessions, but he gives you eternal life, in eternal bliss.  And what’s really not fair is how God accomplished this.  It’s not fair that God looks at my life of sin and only sees my Savior’s perfection.  It’s not fair that the punishment I deserved, was given to Jesus as he hung on the cross.  Is it fair that there is no sin is so great that my God will never take me back?  I am thankful that my God is not fair, because in Jesus I am not a fool.  God makes me wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.  That is the only way to be truly Focused on Living.

Want to hear more?  Watch this week’s message taken from Luke 12.