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.

Listening To The Father’s Heart

 

"So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore, do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you". Matthew 6:28-33

Son, I marvel at the unbelief that many of my sons and daughters exhibit. They worry and fret over the smallest of matters. Can they not see how much order there is in the universe? Can they not see how the animal kingdom balances out life? Can they not see how the seas remain in their boundaries? Can they not understand how precisely I positioned the sun from the earth? Sometimes my creation cries out through storms and natural disasters, but even this is a part of the natural order of things that you cannot fully understand at this time. Worry is a fruit of unbelief. It says you don’t believe I am there. It says you must depend on yourself. Release all your cares to me. Rest in the knowledge that I am a Father who cares and will respond to your needs.

FAITH IS SPELLED R.I.S.K

 

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water, and came toward Jesus.  But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!" (Matt 14:29-30). Jesus told Peter to get out of the boat. There is always a risk when we attempt something never done before. Naysayers seem to come out of the woodwork. Why? Because it’s not their vision, it’s yours. Sometimes we fail the first time out. It’s a fact that most entrepreneurs fail before they are really successful. "Success," said Winston Churchill, "is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." Everybody fails. It’s part of the process that leads us to maturity and success. Most successful entrepreneurs don’t think of their failures as defeats. They think of them as lessons. If you hope to succeed, learn everything you can from your failures. In The Three Success Secrets of Shamgar, Orlando Magic executive Pat Williams observed, "Our experiences may not all be triumphs and successes, but so what? Failure is usually a far better teacher than success—if we are willing to learn the lessons. As Houston Astros pitcher Larry Dierker observed, ‘Experience is the best teacher, but a hard grader. She gives the test first, the lesson later.’"[1] God never gets mired in our past failures. He is constantly viewing our lives with future success in mind. "See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland" (Isa. 43:19). Someone once said, "When your memories are bigger than your dreams, you’re headed for the grave." God wants to give us new dreams that are bigger than anything that has ever happened to us in the past. Don’t let past failures keep you from future successes. [1] Pat Williams and Jay Strack, The Three Success Secrets of Shamgar (Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, Inc., 2004), p. 103.