The Eulogy of Life
Romans 14:8 – “For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s”
Ecclesiastes 12:7 – “And the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.”
Death is coming for us all. Therefore, we must behave in a way that gives men the opportunity to speak well of us after our passing. What are we doing today that will be on our eulogy?
What will men say about us?
Hebrews 11 is filled with the stories of men who did took great action during their life and that chapter of scripture lives on as an eternal eulogy to their lives. They left a legacy through their actions, that thought they are dead, they still speak.
Or are we living in such a way that men will struggle to find something good to say about us? The men will all huddle together and scramble to come up with something, anything of worth that you did with your life. Because even though you kept your 9-5 job, raised decent kids, was a decent guy and you checked all the boxes of a good life, you still did nothing worth remembering. You did nothing to stand out and make a difference.
You lived a simple life, which is to be admired in some, but all the while you did not excel in any endeavor. You are forgotten forever.
One day men will stand up to speak on our behalf after we can no longer speak for ourselves. They will give an overview of what we did with our lives. We have the opportunity now to live in such a way as to give them plenty of material to speak about, and to leave them with inspiration for life.
We can live so that others are still inspired by us days, weeks, even months and years after our passing.
If we live as Christians we can go to heaven, but if we live as excellent men on top of that, we can leave others a shining example to follow.
A pattern to model their lives after so they can stop being mediocre in their everyday lives. Most men are pathetic and do nothing, others do great deeds and are remembered for centuries. You have the opportunity today to live so that you are one of those excellent men, rather than the pathetic men that plague the Church today.
Very few men in the Church are admired. And if they are admired in the Church, they are likely not admired outside the Church. You can be both, but you have to live life to the extreme in your disciplines.
Through death we may live.
Application
There are not many high performance individuals in the Church. Most people need rest and recreation time. Most men need to get their minds off life and take the edge off, but not you. You can work hours on end with no rest because your mind is centered on being something great. Your mind is obsessed with being more than your predecessors. This is one of the primary ways to be remembered at the end of life and to make an impact.
You must gather many accomplishments, both inside the Church and outside the Church.
Weak men in the church berate people who succeed in the world, labeling them as “worldly men”.
No, they are just successful, unlike most men in the Church. The new generation will not respect a man who is successful in the Church but is a pauper at his work and whose life is a failure on every other front. You must be successful on all fronts. This begins by not wasting a single hour of the day. If you work 12 hours instead of your normal 8 each day, then will have over 1300 hours of extra work done by the end of the year.
You don’t need the extra rest, you do not need to relax, you need to get after the work.
This does not mean you have to hang at your job for another four hours a day, on the contrary I advise against that. Gather disciplines to yourself that you will focus on for those other hours of the day. If you write for an hour every day, you can write three 100,000 word books a year.
You must use your time wisely. You can waste it watching television or playing video games, or you can concentrate your time in endeavors that could possibly outlive you for hundreds of years. Gather accomplishments but never lose sight of the Lord. This is the mark of a truly great man. Master the use of your time. Control your thoughts. Outwork everyone around you.
Conduct yourselves like men.
