I remember walking in the cafeteria in Jr. High and reading a t-shirt that aid "Life is a playground and the person with the biggest toys wins"
I hope the young boy wearing that shirt has figured out that the message on his old t-shirt is absolutely wrong.
1st. Life is not a play ground
A message I heard on the radio not long ago has stuck with me. The preacher said that many times we live and expect our life to be like a playground while in all reality this world is more like a war-zone.
The Bible remids us to put on the armor of God (Ephesians 6:13-18). It also says "Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour" (I Peter 5:8).
I think in all reality if we were able to see the spiritual dimension of our world we would see the battlefield. Ephesians 6:12 reads "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."
Yesterday as I was sitting across a young girl at the pregnancy center she was sharing very personal things from her life. This young 18 year old girl has already been through so much. My heart ached for her. I saw her hurts, her wounds. We see pictures and hear stories of our soldiers who are wounded in battled some returning home maimed and broken. As I sat there listening, through my spiritual eyes I could have seen a young mamied and broken girl but through it all, I saw a young girl whom God has been drawing to Himself to heal her from her wounds.
"But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed" (Isaiah 53:5).
Praise God that in Jesus we can find healing and so much more.
Now, although I know that I have been healed from the wounds I have received from the enemy, from living in a sinful world, and just from following my sinful desires I still bear the scars. Some scars are small and some scars run deep like the scars of Frodo Baggins on Lord of the Rings.
Aside from our life not being a playground, a person with the most toys wins what?
Mark 8:36 clearly states that there is more to life than the stuff of this world when it says, "What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?"
Therefore, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will" (Romans 12:2).
