When Christ, Who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.

Colossians 3:4, NIV (1978)

I think it was Stephen Covey who wrote about keeping the main thing the main thing if we are ever to be successful in life. He was primarily speaking about business matters, but as true as it is for physical things, it is even more vital that we keep this principle in mind for our spiritual lives.

In the 30th chapter of Deuteronomy, Moses reminded the Israelites that the LORD was their life, and he went on to say in chapter 32 that the laws of God that he had presented to them were not just idle words, but that they were their lives. In the New Testament, Jesus repeated the truth that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. The apostle Paul would later remind us that we were to do our best to correctly handle God's words of truth.

When you combine all of these truths and commandments, we are left with the inescapable reality that God and Christ are indeed to be the focal point of our lives, and we can only find what they want by taking their instructions to heart and living them in such a way as to make their commands the very substance of our beings - the bread of life, if you will. 

So, we must ask ourselves the following: Are God and Christ truly our lives? Are we going to their word to make sure that we are living the life according to their instruction? Or are they just a part of our life, and is the Word just something we read when we are at church or when we can squeeze it into our busy schedules?

The reason that understanding God is our life is so important is that in His eyes (the only eyes that count) the main thing for us is to live for He and Christ. The only way we can do that is if we are reading His Word in order to know how to live that life. This is key, because so few of us really understand this because we are too busy making the things that we do the main thing. In other words, we all too often get our identity from whatever our main activity is for us at the present time.

So, if you are still going to school, you likely view your life through the lens of those activities. You are a student, or you are a basketball player. Maybe you allow others to define you as we were prone to do when I was going to school in ancient days. Then, you were a "brain" or a "jock". Maybe you were a "geek" or a "stoner" but whatever the term was, the way other people viewed you was often what became your life.

It's pretty sad, when you really think about it...

and as we get older, it doesn't get any easier to figure out what our lives should really consist of. When we are just getting started, we are graduates, then newlyweds, then parents. Before too long, we are defined by whatever our occupation is. "He is an insurance man", or she "is just a housewife". And the reason that we are so tempted to make our lives the main thing that we do is because these things really do take up the bulk of our time - and they are important! Being a student is often a full-time job, and being a parent or having a career is even more so. So, can we help that we become whatever it is that we do the most? Can we help it if the main thing in our lives defines who we are?

We may not think so, but that is not the point. The point is that God has already told us what the main thing is when He informed us that He and His Son were our lives, and that His commandments are not somehow "idle words" but that they are our lives. In other words, we must realize that the essence of our lives is to be Him! God created us or we would not even exist. If He were to withdraw His breath from this world, everyone who does exist would cease to do so. 

And we must realize that we are here for a purpose! We are not here for a random walk on earth to merely dabble in whatever experience pleases us or demands our attention. We are here for the sole reason that God wants us to be here. And despite the fact that we so often act as if He doesn't even exist, for some reason He still loves us and wants us to be with Him forever. And while we cannot say for sure what it is He has in mind for our eternities, we can know from what we observe here on earth that it will be worthwhile, and it will be meaningful. Furthermore, it will be better!

But this better life, both here on this physical earth and later in heaven, is reserved only for those who will love the Father and the Son, who will love Their Word, who will seek Their will, and who will do it! For those who understand that the Lord is their life, life is wonderful, and after this life there will be heaven! But for those who fail to realize this - for those who fail to make God their life now, the end result will not be pleasant. Which path, I wonder, will we choose?