The Dash

7 Days

Day 6

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As unique as we all are and as varied as the lives we will all live will be, we will all share something in common with every single person who has ever lived or who will ever live. We will have a literal or metaphorical "dash." Do you know the dash? That little line between the year you are born and the year you die? Everything we will ever do, think, or say will take place within that brief piece of punctuation. What is the importance of what happens in that dash? Let's get started and find out.

Summary

Either Jesus is coming, or death is coming. That's a heavy statement, but it's the reality of each of our lives. We put off thinking about it and distract ourselves from it, but look at what James the brother of Jesus, has to say about the brevity of life:

Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

James 4:14

Our lifespan is like a mist that appears for a moment and fades the next.

Our days may come to seventy years,

or eighty, if our strength endures;

yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow,

for they quickly pass, and we fly away.

If only we knew the power of your anger!

Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due.

Teach us to number our days,

that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Psalm 90:10-12

Teach us to number our days so that we may gain a heart of wisdom. What happens when we die should impact what happens while we live.

Show me, Lord, my life’s end

and the number of my days;

let me know how fleeting my life is.

You have made my days a mere handbreadth;

the span of my years is as nothing before you.

Everyone is but a breath,

even those who seem secure.

Psalm 39:4-5

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.

James 4:13-17

Life is short, but eternity is long; what we do with our lives, with our dash, with our mist echoes in eternity. Our actions do not earn our place in Heaven; only the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus can do that, but our actions do impact what our future in Heaven is like.

Your circumstances here on Earth don’t determine your standing in Heaven; what does is how you leverage those circumstances for God’s name and renown. So here is the question you should be asking yourself…

What are you doing with your dash?

Scripture References

16For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

6Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord.

7For we live by faith, not by sight.

8We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.

9So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.

51Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—

52in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

53For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.

54When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

13Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.

14For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.

15According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.

16For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

17After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

18Therefore encourage one another with these words.

20But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,

21who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

21God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

10By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care.

11For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.

12If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw,

13their 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.

14If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward.

15If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.

8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—

9not by works, so that no one can boast.

10For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Louie Giglio

Louie Giglio is the Visionary Architect and Director of the Passion Movement, comprised of Passion Conferences, Passion City Church, Passion Publishing and sixstepsrecords, and the founder of Passion Institute.