LIVING FOR A CAUSE GREATER THAN YOURSELF

 "I can do everything through Him who gives me strength." - Philippians 4:13

In the thirteenth century, a man named William Wallace became the instrument of freedom from England's tyranny over Scotland. A very wicked king ruled England. A tragedy in the life of William Wallace launched him into living for this cause. Initially his cause was revenge, but soon his cause turned to something bigger than himself - freedom for a nation. When he challenged the commoners to fight for this freedom, they responded that the enemy was too great and that they might die on the battlefield. They also refused to fight for the nobles, the knights, and leaders who had a vested interest in gaining more land for themselves versus a pure cause of freedom. Wallace's response: "Yes, we might die. We will all die sooner or later. But we will die for a cause worth dying for. So that our children and their children might live in freedom." This story was popularized in the movie Brave Heart (Sherman Oaks, California: Paramount Pictures, 1995).
Today we find many Christian workplace believers living a status quo relationship with God that is more characterized as "business as usual" than a life demonstrating God's power. Our focus is often more concerned with improving our standard of living than improving the Kingdom of God through our circle of influence. While this takes place, millions upon millions die without the saving grace of Christ. Many other Christians die never experiencing the freedom in Christ that His blood paid for. God has called each of us to live for a cause greater than ourselves - a life that is dependent on His grace and power to achieve things we never thought possible through our lives. This is His plan for your life. The apostle Paul prayed that He might experience the power of the resurrection in his life. This power is available to you and me to live for a cause greater than ourselves. Ask God what He wants to achieve through your life today. And consider yourself dead already to the consequences of what that might mean for you.

COMING OUT OF EGYPT

 “But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness” (Rom. 6:17-18).

Becoming a new person in Christ is part of a life-long journey that begins at conversion. Before coming to Christ, we were living (in a metaphorical sense) in Egypt, in the land of bondage. Just as the people of Israel toiled as slaves in Egypt, we were slaves to sin and worldly ambition.

Before we came to Christ, we sweated and toiled to build our career and acquire material possessions. Work was our idol. Greed was our taskmaster. We may have had all the trappings of power in the business world – a corner office, a staff of our own, a key to the executive washroom – but we were living as a slave in the land of Egypt. We didn’t run our career; our career ran us.

Jesus once said, “No servant can serve two masters. You cannot serve both God and money” (Luke 16:13). In the original language, the word translated “money” was an Aramaic word, Mammon. This does not refer merely to money as a medium of exchange but also to a demonic spirit designed to promote a mind-set of ambition for riches, power, and worldly gain. The word is capitalized in the original text because the people of Jesus’ day thought of Mammon as a false god. Jesus was saying that those who spend their lives seeking worldly gain are idolaters. No one can serve two masters. No one can worship both the true God and a false god.

We cannot experience the grace that God gives to His children because we are too busy striving for riches and enslaved to Mammon. The only way we can be free is to turn away from Mammon and allow the one true God to transform us into a different person.

Ask yourself today if your life is best represented as Egypt or the Promised Land.

A QUESTION OF OWNERSHIP

 

"Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it." - Matthew 10:39 Otto Koning was a missionary in New Guinea. He worked among a native tribe that had known only their village ways. One of those village ways was stealing from others. When Otto and his wife arrived and moved into a hut, the natives often came by to visit. The Konings would notice that after the natives left the missionaries' home, various household items had disappeared. They saw these items again when they went to preach in the natives' village. The only fruit Otto could grow on the island was pineapples. Otto loved pineapples, and he took pride in the pineapples he was able to grow. However, whenever the pineapples began to ripen, the natives would steal them. Otto could never keep a ripe pineapple for himself. This was a frustration, and he became angry with the natives. All during the seven-year period in which this took place, Otto preached the gospel to these natives, but never had a conversion. The more the natives stole, the angrier Otto became. Finally, one day, Otto had a German Shepherd dog flown in from another missionary to protect his pineapple garden after other frustrated efforts failed. This only further alienated the natives from him. Otto took a furlough to the United States and attended a conference on personal rights. At this conference, he discovered that he was frustrated over this situation because he had taken personal ownership of his pineapple garden. After much soul searching, he gave his garden to God. Soon, the natives started having problems among their tribe. They discovered that Otto was the reason for their problems because he gave his garden to his God. The natives saw a correlation between what Otto had done and their own lives being affected by calamities in their village. When Otto gave his garden to God, he no longer got angry and was free from worry. The natives started bringing him fruit from the garden because they didn't want any more calamities to come into their village. The light came on one day when a native said to Otto, "You must have become a Christian, Otto. You don't get angry anymore. We always wondered if we would ever meet a Christian." They had never associated Otto with the kind of person he was preaching about because his message did not line up with his life. Otto was broken in spirit when he realized he had been such a failure. At the end of seven years, he witnessed his first conversion, and many began coming to Christ once he fully gave his garden to God. The fruit grew so abundant that Otto began exporting it and growing other types of fruit, such as bananas. His village became the most evangelized in the whole region, yet for seven years, he had not one convert. Otto realized something each of us must realize: To gain your life, you must lose it, along with your possessions. It was only when he gave all his possessions to God that he became free from them. God measured back to him manifold once He had complete ownership. Do you have some possessions that you need to give up to God today? Let God have all that you have. Become a steward, not an owner. You will be surprised at how well God can take care of His possessions.