Epitaph is an English word formed from the Greek word epithaphios which means a funeral oration. Epitath is a text written in honour of a deceased, often on a tombstone where the deceased is buried.
These days, people hire orators to write it for their dead, or browse the internet to get best ideas and words to impress visitors to the tomb, most of which may actually be misleading.
The truth about epitaphs is that each of us writes his or her own, and whatever we write, our loved ones or those they hire can't ever write anything better or more accurate.
We live our lives for what we will be remembered for. I believe there is life after death, we are eternal, we really don't die. I believe after death there is judgment and I believe whatever we do here has impact on what we meet at the other side, I believe we are either saved from eternal judgment or we face the wrath of eternal justice.
But epitaphs aren't written for God. God's judgement doesn't need human accolades or condemnations. God is all knowing, if we follow His salvation process, He is faithful to save us at the end.
But then, our lives are also meant to inspire others and we ourselves seek to know what people think about us. Epitaphs are written for people to read to receive knowledge and inspiration about the dead.
We all love to be remembered for good. You may have written someone else's epitaph but how about writing your own by yourself?
And some people won't mind writing theirs too. Of course, we write our own profiles here, and we can convert that and eulogise ourselves but that won't be enough... But the way we write epitaphs isn't the same way we write profiles. You may pen your own profile, you won't pen your own epitaphs even if you wrote it.
Each day and choices we make write our epitaphs on the minds of people, what they will eventually pen and put on the piece of marble to be placed on our tomb is what we are writing today on the minds of those who will pen it.
The problem is that many of us are too carried away in pursuing all manners of things for our selfish temporal sustenance that we forget about what we are writing as we pursue life.
Epitaph writing calls for living life deliberately intentionally. You know what you want to be known and remembered for. You want it to be something of good quality that affects lives more. Then you start working to make it happen, in so doing you make it difficult for whoever would pen your epitaph to write merely whatever he or she thinks or read somewhere else.
We must live our lives in such a way as to positively affect every single person we meet in this life even if meeting for a very brief moment. We have only one life to live and it's so brief, so brief that, light, with its speed of travel, won't reach any significant distance in the universe before the oldest person live from cradle to grave.
Death is inevitable, if Christ tarries, as soon as we die, the epitaphs written about us are rehearsed in every mind upon where we have written it... And if it is to be penned, what will the text be?
Live deliberately, live intentionally, live purposefully, live to leave inspiration behind, live eternally.
In celebration of a child and servant of God, Reinhard Bonnke, who slept in the Lord recently after faithfully preaching the gospel of Christ's love to millions across the world, living a life of great inspiration!
Just one life to live. Lord help us dir
ReplyDeleteMessage of the gospel of salvation is one unique task which every child of God must put first before other interests and tasks. We are saved to touched the lives of many others which God has destined and put in our pathway for salvation. We may not understand the mystery of this, but God intentionally saved us from our past for this singular purpose. When our Lord Jesus Christ met with the woman by the well. He told the woman what we could call today a mere reflection of her past, but the effect of that simple action changed the life of this woman and those that came her pathway. She went about to tell about a man who told her about all her life. That was the simplicity of evangelism. The Bible says the woman went about to broadcast her experience with Jesus by the well. Today, God is calling and asking us to take a step of simple obedience, a step of faith to reach out to others who are languishing in sin. Our simple experience of salvation is enough as a message for God to work with and change the lives of people around us.
ReplyDeleteWe may not need to have the kind of call received by Evangelist Reinhard Bonkke, our call may just be as simple as telling others about your encounter with salvation like the woman by the well. Or about the goodness of God in your life. God is seeking for such that will act base on this simple obedience and tell someone today
Where ever he may find you in the market place, your office, on the road to your work, in the mall or at play. Jesus is calling and asking for our simple act of obedience to this command. He is looking for another representative here on earth. He is looking for a man or woman that will say 'Yes Lord, send me.'
We are all call to this work of evangelising. It's time for us to rise up and pick up the baton from where Evangelist Reinhard left it and run this race until the end. We should all be challenged by the same saying of Apostle Paul; That "I have faught a good fight, I have finished my cause and have kept the faith..." at the end of our journey here on earth.
Now is the time are you ready to tell someone today?
#PstSam.