Take this thought with you into 2015 …

It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

It began by my taking a vacation to Melbourne, Australia some years ago. I was living in Hawaii at the time and had already visited Sydney, so I thought what better place to enjoy Christmas and ring in the New Year than “down under” in a city I had never visited. New Year’s Eve is also my birthday, so going that time of year would just be a grand celebration!

I had a great week seeing the sights and even taking in a cricket game before the New Year finally arrived. The TV news reported about a quarter million Aussies were spilling into the streets to bring in the New Year, and I was right in the middle of them!

What a blast!

But about a half hour past midnight, I had to dash back to my hotel, grab my bags and take a taxi to the airport for my flight home to Waikiki.

Somewhere on the flight home we crossed the international dateline. What that meant was that my flight landed in Honolulu about 11:20 p.m. … on December 31! I had just enough time to rush to Waikiki and celebrate my birthday and bring in the New Year all over again with my friends!

Most people never get the experience of having their birthday and bring a New Year twice (literally!) in the same day! That truly was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me.

And that’s my point as we’re poised to roll into 2015: You only get to live each day once, and then it’s gone. If the Lord is patient and gracious, He will supply you with 365 fresh new days very shortly. You’ll have the opportunity to live out each 24-hour segment just once.

What are you going to do with that gift of time?

Once it’s spent, it’s gone for good.

Jesus considered what’s really important for any human being, and He summed up what should be our greatest priorities in life like this …

“Jesus replied, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: Love your neighbor as yourself. The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments,” Matthew 22:37-40.

If you obey the Lord by stuffing each new day of 2015 full with the kind of love He speaks of in this text, then you’ll know you spent your days as well as you possibly could.

Here’s wishing you days full of the love of the Lord in 2015!

Scotty