Instrument-4-Christ

I wasn’t planning on looking at only this one verse, but it has so much meaning in it that I decided to meditate solely on it today. It says, “The end of a thing is better than its beginning.” Now when Solomon says that, I immediately recall all the times when he talked about death being better than birth. But other thoughts come to mind too.

So many things in life are more joyous in the end than they were in the beginning. Why? It’s because everything that is started usually has a purpose or a goal. Therefore, the end result is the main emphasis, and everything else just leads up to it. Thus, the beginning of something is simply a starting point from which everything else builds up until the end, the goal, the main purpose.

When I read this verse, the first thing that came to mind was school. The first day of school is always exciting, especially the very first day of school for a young child.

But as time goes on school tends to become a drag, something that is no longer exciting but rather just a responsibility and duty. But once a person graduates from high school, oh what a joyous occasion it is! Ceremonies, celebrations, open houses…none of that happens on the first day of school.

Graduation is the accomplishment of the goal, the fulfillment of the purpose. Now that I have experienced graduation once and am now back in school here at Faith, I look forward to that day when I will graduate again, but this time from college. The first day of school back in the fall of 2008 was exciting, but the end of college will be much more so.

In application to my future as a Christian, what a day it will be when I graduate from this life! My day of birth was exciting, and I celebrate it every year on December 1, but it won’t compare to that day when I enter Heaven’s glory.

It’s not that this life is dreary and I don’t enjoy it. As a Christian, this life is fulfilling in many ways. But Heaven…amazing. The end of this life will be better than the beginning.

As Paul said in Philippians 1:21, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

The end of a thing is more desired
Than the time when it is new.
Greater is something when it is retired,
When it’s goal is carried through.

After taking a break from Ecclesiastes for two weeks to focus on missions-related passages (leading up to and during Missions Conference here at Faith), I’m ready to jump back into this book. I left off at Ecclesiastes 7:4, so I will pick up right where I stopped…

Today I’m focusing on verses 5 and 7: “It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the song of fools…Surely oppression destroys a wise man’s reason, and a bribe debases the heart.”

“The rebuke of the wise man” holds more value than “than the song of fools” even though the latter sounds more pleasant. The former knows how to talk about what is good, whereas the latter knows how to make whatever he talks about sound good. Sometimes it may be difficult to tell the two apart, but the results could be significant.

As for oppression and bribes…they are self-explanatory. The root of both of these problems is selfishness. Self-seeking desires lead to the oppression of others to attain one’s own ends and the receiving of bribes from others to further oneself. Selfishness destroys the good sense of the wise and corrupts the heart of the same. Self is man’s biggest hindrance to worshiping God and loving others and living a life that glorifies God. I need to guard myself against doing things with selfish motives and thinking only of myself.

If you want a good way to mess up your life,
Try putting others and God on a shelf.
Make your own desires important and rife,
Think about nothing but only yourself.

This method has worked to destroy the wise,
To pull down the great, to ruin the strong.
When a person becomes the best in his eyes,
His destruction is sure and his downfall headlong.