Since turning sixty years of age a few years back, Ive had people in the workplace ask me from time to time when I was going to retire. Then Ive had folks ask me why I was still working? (they thought I had retired years ago!). Then I tell them the story that back in 1996, 550 employees (including myself) were laid off from a major gas pipeline company, where I was within twelve days of being able to retire at 52 years of age with the company bridging me to 55.<\/p>\n
Since then, Ive been employed by one of our local school districts now for eleven years; two years full time and nine years part time. To tell you the truth, with all of my late wifes medical bills that have accumulated over past years, I simply will never be able to retire. And thats a good thing!<\/strong><\/p>\n Why is it a good thing, you ask? Because Im still greatly blessed by the God of heaven; I still have relatively good health, a roof over my head and three square meals a day. If you read any kind of news at all, you quickly realize that there is virtually over one billion poverty-stricken people in our world who dont have any of these God-provided blessings. So I am indeed thankful for His daily provision (Matthew 6:24-34).<\/p>\n Even if I hadnt of experienced any of the above listed problems and could have retired, what would I have retired to? I had a good friend who worked for the same gas pipeline company who got the privilege to retire at fifty-five. Sadly, he didnt have anything to replace his full-time work at the gas company; he had no purpose or goal for living, and thus died six years later in his sleep while watching television at a relatively young sixty-one years of age.<\/p>\n Whats the point to all of the above stories, you ask? Never retire!<\/strong> If were a faithful Christian, we immediately realize that the God with whom we daily serve doesnt have a retirement plan!<\/strong> (1 Corinthians 3:9-15; 1 Corinthians 15:50-58) not even in heaven<\/strong> (Revelation 7:13-15; Revelation 22:3). Were to faithfully serve Him and our fellow man up to the very second that our heart quits beating (Ecclesiastes 12:1-7; cf. Job 7:1-10; Job 16:16-22; cf. Ecclesiastes 9:10).<\/p>\n Brethren and friends, this great blessing gives us a purpose and reason to get up out of bed every morning, thankfully and joyfully serving Him and our fellow man (Psalm 118:24).<\/p>\n Retire? Retire to what?<\/strong> Retire to an early grave, with no purpose for living? Thankfully, God doesnt want that end for us. He wants us to continually be a blessing to others until He<\/strong> is ready to call us home (Matthew 5:14-16; 2 Timothy 4:1-8; cf. Philippians 2:12-18).<\/p>\n What an awesome God that we serve!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since turning sixty years of age a few years back, Ive had people in the workplace ask me from time to time when I was going to retire. Then Ive had folks ask me why I was still working? (they thought I had retired years ago!). Then I tell them the story that back in … Continue reading “Retire To What? – Bible study”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46303\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}