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By “give my life for,” I mean two things.  First, I give my life “for” them by giving my life to them.  The life that I now have the privilege of living, I endeavor to invest in these things.  That investment amounts to a slow dying for.  Second, I pray the Lord would strengthen me in any moment where I might be called upon to give my life “for” these things by dying more quickly, perhaps violently for them.  In those two senses of the phrase, here are eight things I would give my life for:

1.  Scripture: The Bible as the inerrant, infallible, inspired, authoritative, sufficient, nourishing, life-giving word of God (Rev. 1:9).

2.  God: The revelation of God as the only God, eternally Triune in nature and yet one, deserving all glory, honor, praise, and submission from His creation (Ex. 15:11; John 10:30; Acts 5:3-4).

3.  Jesus: Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, fully God and fully man, in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, the exact representation of God’s being and the radiance of His glory, apart from whom there is no salvation (Col. 2:9; Heb. 1:3; John 3:16).

4.  The Gospel: The good news that sinful man is saved from the justly deserved, holy, eternal wrath of God by God’s grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, who in His perfect life and His substitutionary, penal atonement provides both our righteousness before God and satisfaction to God’s wrath, and to whom we are forever united by faith unto eternal life (Rom. 3:21-26).

5. Missions: The call and work of going to all the world to make disciples of all nations and to teach them to observe everything Jesus commanded so that the glory, honor, praise, and worship of God through Christ would fill the earth and so that the joy, comfort, salvation, and hope of all peoples would overflow in Christ (Matt. 28:18-20; 2 Cor. 11:23-29).

6.  Discipleship: My own personal profession of faith in and loyalty to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God the Son, my Lord and Master, to whom I owe everything, for and in whom I live, breathe and have my being, and Who lives in me, completing the work He began until the day of His return, who will be perfectly and now is imperfectly my greatest and highest Delight and Satisfaction (Luke 9:23-26; Gal. 2:20; Acts 17:28; Phil. 1:6;  Ps. 17:15).

7.  My Family: The good thing and obtained favor of the Lord, my wife, who satisfies me with her love and comforts me with her presence, who is constant encouragement and whose virtue has made me known among the elders at the city gate, with whom I am an heir to life and a partner in the gospel of our Lord, and the arrows in our quiver, entrusted to us to raise as a godly offspring to the Lord, not to provoke but to bring up in the fear and admonition of the Lord, through whom we have no greater joy than to see them walking in the truth, who we pray represent one in what will be generations of godly Anyabwiles living for the Lord (Prov. 18:22; 5:18-19; Prov. 31; Ps. 128; Mal. 2:15; 2 John 4; 2 Tim. 1:5).

8.  First Baptist Church: The 300+ persons bought by the blood of Christ, granted eternal life and the gift of the Holy Spirit, adopted into the family of God, joined together by covenant love, journeying as pilgrims to the Heavenly City, entrusted by God’s grace into my care and leadership to deliver as a chaste bride awaiting her groom (John 10:10-15; Col. 1:28-29; Rev. 21).

Lord, grant me grace to live and die for all that matters.  Do not let me live a moment longer than faithfulness lasts.  And while I live grant me to be faithful in all you call me to.  Dearest Lord, come quickly.  Amen.

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