Page 12 - Vol 1 No 1 digital

Is Your Life
an Oasis,
Or a Mirage?
Rev. Daren Downs
Can there be anything so cruel as a mirage? It is a
deceiving illusion. What you think is sure to satisfy, that
you exert so much energy to reach, can leave you in
worse condition than if you never attempted to reach it.
This earthly life is filled with illusions.
So many things sought for, though they are real as far
as this earth is concerned mean nothing to the eternal
soul – they are but a mirage. How many have gotten
riches to find the frustration and dissatisfaction of
wanting more is tearing their home and relationships
apart? How many have reached the height of fame
and the applause of men only to feel all alone? They
stand in the midst of the cheers, hearing the echo of
a hollow distant sound of emptiness. It is all a mirage.
Not To Be Wasted.
Not everything thrown away is of no value, but everything
thrown away is wasted. Every soul has value, and every
lost soul will have been wasted. When Judas returned his
wages of betrayal to the priests, the blood money of Jesus
was used to buy a field of broken earthen vessels that no
one wanted.
God gave his only begotten Son that our life should not
be wasted. Not just that we would not be lost forever,
but that the great treasure that He has deposited in us
would not be wasted. Moles have eyes but cannot see; the
ostrich has wings but cannot fly; and so many Christians
are living in such contradiction to their heavenly nature.
How many are wasting their lives, if not outright at least in – we may be seeking a lawful thing, a thing that would be
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a measure? If we are not living our life fully for the Lord,
then we are wasting our life. We are like the eagle with a
great wingspan that never learned to fly.
It doesn’t mean that everyone has to be a pastor, a
prophet, or a missionary to a foreign land. When the Lord
gave out the talents it wasn’t the one with five that was
lost, it was the one that had been given a single talent and
did nothing with it.
Though there are failures, life is as real as death; satisfaction
is as real as hunger; quenching is as real as thirst.
How does one find an oasis in the wilderness of this life
rather than a mirage?
On a Sunday morning, a young man in our church stood
behind a tear-soaked chair as the Lord deeply touched
him. He said to me afterward, “What happened to me?” I
responded, “God did something personal in your life son.
He wants you to know Him personally.”
The touch of the Lord leads to the fullness of life in Christ,
if we follow Him.
To seek anything other than the person of Christ is to
seek a mirage. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God,” or let
the first and preeminent thing you seek be the kingdom of
God and His righteousness. Christ Himself is the kingdom.
When we seek a mate more than we seek God, when we
seek a position, a platform in life more than we seek God
good, but to get there without the Lord being first in our
life is to make our way to a mirage. The reason so many