Today is the first day of the rest of your life
— unknown
As I was driving to work today, I was thinking of some of the things I had not done very well previously, and how when we work, whatever we do, we should do it as if we are working for the Lord himself, and not just for our boss or our company or our clients etc. I wasn't beating myself up about these things, or feeling down about them, but I was feeling convicted of the need to change!
I was reminded of a scene from Vanilla Sky (weird film!). In it Tom Cruise plays the role of a self-centred, hedonistic business tycoon, who is brought to his senses when he falls in love (awwww!) Penelopy Cruz, his love interest, is decidedly unimpressed with his lifestyle so far, and convinces him to mend his ways. She comes up with this great quote: "Today is the first day of the rest of your life." (Anyone know who this quote is from? Answers in the comments please) In other words: "It doesn't matter how you have lived your life so far. Now you have a fresh start. What matters is what you do with today that sets a pattern for the rest of your life."
When we come to Christ, we get a wonderful fresh start. All our past failures are erased and we get to start with a clean sheet. But it's not just a one-off. Jesus paid for all our sins, not just past, but present and future as well. Every time we mess up, and come to the Lord and say sorry, he forgives us as if it had never happened. (1Jn 1:9) Each day with Jesus is a new beginning. There is nothing bad in our past that needs to set a precedent for how we live today. Today really is the first day of the rest of our lives. We don't need to wait for the new year, or for a specific ministry time, or for someone to lay hands on us. If God is convicting you of something you need to change, Today is the day to do it! Accept that your old mistakes have been forgiven and forgotten, and that before you is a great opportunity for success. Just make the decision to be different, and be different!
Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts (Heb 3:15)
Wash and make yourselves clean... Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! (Isa 1:16-17 [selected])
When he came to his senses, he said ... "I will set out and go back to my father".... So he got up and went to his father. (Lk 15:17-20 [selected])
4 comments:
Hi Chris, Thanks a lot for the tips. Will come in very handy. I just dowloaded a version of Openworkbench a project management tool from www.openworkbench.org with the documantation it becomes very easy to use and will be very helpful!
See if you find it useful.
Also do you just use Ubuntu or do you have MS loaded as well. My machine an IBM R52 has come preloaded with Win XP Pro and if I reboot it I lose the Pro. I cannot partition my disk because IBM has a feature that if you system crashes you will not lose anything as long as it is on one single partition- something calld Access IBM. So are there any versions that you could run from a CD?
Will download MYSQL - is it similar to Ms Access? That's the only one have used before! how is PostgreSQL?
I have also added you to my bloggers list. Will keep you and the family in prayer before the throne.
Love and Grace
Roscoe Conan D'Souza (Phil121)
Hey are you online right now?
Do yo have a yahoo or skype id?
RCD (Phil121)
The quote is attributed to Charles "Chuck" Dederich, Sr. He was the Founder of "Synanon" in Santa Moncia, California.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synanon#cite_note-0
http://www.synanon.org/synanon/Museum/TimeLineH.cfm
Hi, Chris:
I know this is an old post, but if you're still out there I'll tell you the true origin of "Today..." I wrote the quote in the 1950's, while I was in the army in Europe. Later, in the mid-60's, I wrote the song and it was used in an ad campaign for a local (Oklahoma City) Savings and Loan. It instantly went viral; we received more than 30,000 letters thanking us. You can hear the whole song at wadcoinc.com, under the "song" category. John Denver's version came much later.
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