Choices, Choices
All of us have a choice.
We can live for self or we can live for Christ. We can leave a legacy of living for the now, or we can leave a legacy of living for eternity.
Should you choose to trade in yourself for your Savior, then your first step is to live a life of service to Him. Seek to discover how He wants to use you to build His kingdom. If Christ is the reason for everything, then everything else that you think is important is secondary to Christ and His plan for your life.
Consider the story of Josue.
While I was being trained at the National Center for Fathering, a fellow trainee was a Hispanic man named Josue. This man of God labored at a factory in the area that made batteries, working the night shift—10:00 pm to 6:00 am.
This meant that Josue went to work on a Tuesday at 10:00 pm, worked until Wednesday morning at 6:00 am, and then came to the training center for our 8:00 am start. At 6:00 pm, he left the training, went home, slept for three hours, went to work, and started the cycle all over again to be at the training at 8:00 am on Thursday morning.
You can imagine that Josue came to each training session with a bladder-buster container of coffee, a helmet with two Red Bull’s on either side, a needle for caffeine injections…well, maybe not all of that.
After three days of this, someone finally asked him, “Why are you doing this, man?”
Josue, in his humble way simply replied, “I want to help people.”
If you are looking for an example of a Christ-driven man, you need look no further than Josue. He is a man with his priorities focused on the reason for everything.
Another Christ-driven man, the Apostle Paul, would write, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice -- the kind he will accept. When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask? Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is. (Romans 12:1,2)
Interestingly, the word Paul uses for sacrifice in the above passage literally means “burnt offering.” Don’t worry. God isn’t looking for you to hop onto your BBQ grill.
Of the five Old Testament offerings, the burnt offering was the only one that went completely to God. With the other four offerings, the priest or the giver would keep part of the offering. Not so with the burnt offering. It was one hundred percent, totally for God.
What does that mean for you and me? It means that since we exist for God and His glory, we need to give ourselves totally over to Him. We need to stop living for ourselves and surrender wholly to Christ. When we do that, the Lord leads us into His good and perfect and pleasing will.
This will, by the way, is what we were created for.
The Bible says that we were created to be mirrors that reflect the glory of the Lord. The problem with the self-driven Christians we discussed in an earlier blog is that the mirror is always pointing toward them. All they see is their kingdom, their world, their goals, their dreams, and their aspirations. Because the mirror is pointing at them, everything is reflected inwardly.
I trust you are not in that group. Instead, you understand that God created you to be Christ-driven. You are no longer focused on self. You are focused on Christ. You are totally surrendered to Christ. You are reflecting His glory, and that reflection will shine for generations to come.
