Day 28 - Rights and Responsibilities

Not being identified with Christ is actually to throw life away. Although we might enjoy the gift of living, life is not given to us for our own plaything, to be used and then, albeit unwillingly, discarded on our deathbed.

Life does not give us rights, only responsibilities. Rites we may be born with or may be afforded us by our peers; they do not come along when we feel like it as part of the package. Men may take them away but the responsibilities always remain with us.

Life is God's investment in us. It is something in his gift, deposited in us so that, as we display him as oaks of righteousness in the world, we might in the end be welcomed home in glory.

But an oak will affect its nearby environment a long time after it has ceased to live. If where we walk is holy ground, then will it not remain so after we have gone by?