Today the world lost a huge innovator in the world of personal electronics. In case you live in a cave and haven’t heard, Steve Jobs died today at the age of 56 after battling cancer for a while. As I look at my facebook wall it is covered with people saying things about Jobs. It is hard to find a person today that has not owned at least one Apple product. It is crazy to think about all the lives he has had an impact on. With Jobs taking a leave of absence this past January, and then stepping down as the CEO of Apple this August, people had to know his health was seriously suffering. But I’m not sure that people thought we’d be getting this news so soon. People were concerned about how Apple would do without him as the CEO, what will happen now?
There is one thing we can be sure of in life, at some point we will die. Way to get depressing on us Nick… thanks that’s what we all wanted to hear. And the truth is none of us want to hear that, but the truth is it’s true. The thing that makes it hard to hear is that we have no idea when. We like to live our lives as though we will never die. Frederick Buechner said, “Intellectually we all know that we will die, but we do not really know it in the sense that the knowledge becomes a part of us. We do not really know it in the sense of living as though it were true. On the contrary, we tend to live as though our lives would go on forever.” Maybe if we ignore it it won’t actually happen. James 4:13-14 says, “Look here, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit.” 14 How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.”
Steve Jobs may no longer be with us, but he has left behind quite a legacy. This is the man that introduced us to the modern day Mac computers, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, and he revolutionized buying music with iTunes. He took Apple from a struggling company about to go under and brought it to greatness. His products and what he did will be remembered for generations to come. You will learn about him in history classes, and it’s a shame that his life had to end so early because I’m sure he had plenty of other things up his sleeve.
When you look at your life, what kind of legacy are you leaving? I’d really encourage you to actually stop reading this and actually take a minute and think about it. When your life is over, what will you be remembered for? Be honest with yourself. You never hear at a funeral that someone was a jerk, liar, cheater, and an overall bad person, but there are plenty of people that we would say fit those descriptions that die. So really be honest, because even if you aren’t willing to, God will be. 1 Corinthians 3:13 says, “their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. ” As Francis Chan said, “The point of your life is to point to [God]. Whatever you are doing, God wants to be glorified, because this whole thing is His.” When you honestly look at your life, is that what you are doing?
As crazy as it seems, the legacy we leave should have nothing to do with us. Our legacy should lead people to Jesus Christ. Philippians 2:15-16 says, “Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people. 16 Hold firmly to the word of life; then, on the day of Christ’s return, I will be proud that I did not run the race in vain and that my work was not useless.” The reality of death really hit me hard a few years ago with the death of my cousin Chris. He was only a year older than me, and we all thought he had lots of life left to live. I’ll never know why, but that wasn’t the case. When we stand before God all we won’t have a chance to go back and change things. We won’t be able to say, “But God I was planning on starting to live like that tomorrow” or “if you would have only given me more time I promise I would have actually turned things around.” This is our shot, this is our chance, and we have to make the most of it. As you chew on all of this, check out this song by Hawk Nelson called “One Shot”.
If you find yourself saying, “This isn’t what I wanted” then go out and do something about it. This is your one shot, and you don’t know how much time is left on the clock. If Jesus isn’t your personal Lord and Savior, then I’d encourage you to make that choice. If He is, I’d encourage your to shine bright and reflect the glory of God. Build a legacy for God not yourself. I’ll leave you with some words of the late Steve Jobs: “If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.”