1 Chronicles 9-11
I tell students all the time, “How you leave a church matters more than how you arrived.” The church will forget how you arrived, but they’ll remember how you left.
Broaden that perspective to life itself, and the issue is only magnified. King Saul is an example of this truth. He had started well, with the Spirit of the Lord coming upon him to such an extent that people thought he was one of the prophets. In the intervening years, though, he had progressively turned from God’s direction — and he would die in battle a most tragic figure: “Saul died because he was unfaithful to the Lord . . . So the Lord put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David son of Jesse” (1 Chron 10:13-14).
The question of whether King Saul was a genuine follower of God is debated, but that’s not the point of this devotion. The point is that we are most often remembered by how we finish our race. That means that how I’ll be remembered will be based on (1) how I live today if the Lord calls me home this day, or (2) how I live tomorrow if the Lord grants me another day. If I’m growing in Christ everyday, others will remember me for what Christ was doing in me even until my death.
RESPONSE: Live today as if this day were your last one on earth.
