| Good Morning Everyone, Our theme for this month: “Resilience” Our Bible verse for today: “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.” Matthew 10:16 (NIV) Our thought for today: “Don’t lose your way in life” This morning I want to return to our discussion from yesterday about Solomon’s story, recorded in Ecclesiastes, and how he lost his way in life. As we learned, Solomon involved himself in many pursuits which of themselves, were not necessarily bad. Some of them were pretty good. But he became so involved in and so obsessed with those pursuits that he was pursing them for their own sake, rather than as part of God’s rule and reign over his life. Solomon lost himself in the secondary agendas of the world and he drifted away from the most important agenda under which all of the other agendas must fall – and that is God’s agenda. We’re often guilty of doing the same thing. We expend enormous amounts of our time, energy, effort, and resources on things like our career, social issues, politics, hobbies, and in the process, we drift away from God’s agenda. We often deceive ourselves by claiming that our full and passionate involvement in those things is an extension of our commitment to God – that we’re pursuing those things as part of the practice of our faith and for the sake of the kingdom of God. That would be fine if it were really true. But often it’s only tangentially true at best. In truth our passion for say, our politics, is usually really mostly about politics, and only tangentially for the sake of the kingdom. Likewise of our career, or our favorite social issue, or our hobbies, or whatever else we’ve committed ourselves to. We also like to claim that if we successfully achieve our objective in this area it will be in the best interest of God’s kingdom agenda. We assert that some situation that isn’t good or right will become better if our politician is elected, or if our legislation becomes law, of if the social issue is resolved our way. And that may be true, but isn’t that the equivalent of treating the symptom rather than the disease? The disease is sin. The cure is Jesus Christ. Our task as citizens of God’s kingdom is to lead people to faith in Christ and to help them grow as His disciples. All of our efforts in these other agendas should be helping to achieve that ultimate purpose. It’s a rough and tumble world out there. In Matthew 10:16 Jesus told us we need to remain sharp, aware, astute, and focused. Resilient Christians live with passion and purpose, but it’s passion and purpose focused in the right way and on the right thing. Let’s stay focused on the thing that matters most (God’s agenda), and not lose our way in life like Solomon did. God Bless, Pastor Jim |
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