Life Worth Living

Luke 17:32,33  Remember Lot's wife.  Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.

Remember Lot’s wife?  Do you remember her life?  Every detail of her life was not laid out for us to see.  Every routine of her day was not explained or described in scripture.  Do we even know her name?  What did Lot’s wife have going for her?  When the angels of God’s mercy arrived in Sodom neither Lot nor his wife was expecting them.  In point of fact, they weren’t overall excited to see them at all.  Here is the essence of God’s mercy to deliver his saints.  Whatever our feelings about this world, when God calls us out of it, he will bring us kicking and screaming if necessary.  These angels had to take Lot, his wife, and daughters, by the hand to forcefully remove them from impending destruction.  And, they weren’t willing to run for the hills and be in God’s will for their lives, but instead pleaded for a small city.  They still wanted a little of what they were leaving behind.  How much was Lot’s wife leaving behind? 

Lot’s wife was leaving behind family, friends, and a prominent life.  In all, we could say her life was Sodom.  She had made the world her life and livelihood.  Why do people hang onto the world when God warns of its destruction and makes a way of escape?  Here is a lesson for the lost.  Knowing someone who will be saved from destruction does not mean deliverance by acquaintance.  Lot could not save his wife.  Lot’s daughters could not save their mother.  Not even angels could save the woman.  But, a world of certain death and destruction, being her only life worth living in her eyes, sentenced her to its same fate.  At the pinnacle of God’s judgment of Sodom, Lot’s wife looked back.  Why?  Destruction was raining down behind her.  The city was engulfed in fire burning from the calamity which had befallen it.  There was nothing but memories in the destroyed city.  But, she remembered and looked back.  She saw the judgment of her life and in seeing the judgment on her life she was destroyed by it.  Remember Lot’s wife!  She lost her life when she sought her life; the life of Sodom.  Lot never looked back and never saw the pillar of salt that had been his wife.

Lot had looked ahead to a little of what he had had.  He looked to a little city.  Maybe just a little of the world would suffice.  How many of us are saved from the destruction and death of eternal Hellfire and insist on a little of the world in our life?  That life of the world should be left behind and forgotten.  Eventually, we learn to gain the joy of Heaven by giving up even that little bit of the world in our life.  Losing our life will preserve it.  Giving up Sodom for the little city of Zoar; or giving up much of the world and holding onto a little of it, will not satisfy and preserve our lives.  It is when we give up all of our life in the world that we preserve it.  We can’t lose our life by holding onto the old, but we will not live the life of God’s will until we give up all.  God saves and God preserves.  Why do we seem to only settle for saved when we could have a full and fruitful life in God’s will?  Lot could not find the way of obedience.  He was compelled by God’s goading and design into the mountain.  Yet, Lot’s heart wasn’t in it.  God will lead us to the right place but we must be willing to do his bidding for the fullness of life.  What did Lot do?  Lot’s life was preserved, even in reluctant obedience.  God makes promises and God delivers.  The preservation of Lot’s life was in the Moabites and Ammonites.  Wasn’t Ruth a Moabite?  Isn’t she in the lineage of Jesus Christ?  Imagine the “if” in all of this.  What if Lot had gone all out for God?  Even dragging Lot out of the world and into the right place led to a blessing.  What could have been if he’d willingly accepted God’s will for his life?

There is another example of losing a life to preserve it.  There is the incomparable Jesus.  He lost his life on the cruel cross of Calvary.  His whole life was within the will of God the Father.  Has his life been preserved?  Has his life been preserved in all the saints of God?  We have yet to fully understand the preservation of the life of Jesus.  There will come a day of reckoning; a day of revelation.  Jesus never sought to save his life. 

When Jesus Christ returns to receive his bride, will we be caught in Sodom and dragged out of the world?  Have we already given up that life; loosed it from its tethers and let it go?  Where will Christ find us? 

If Jesus had the compassion to give up family, friends, and prestige to the Cross, why can’t we give up vice, debauchery, and disobedience?

Remember Lot’s wife. 

Which life have we lost?

Is our life worth living for God?

Romans 8:18  For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.