December 30, 2018 |
“And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” — Luke 2:52 For many years I have made it a habit to spend the last week of the year in prayer, meditation and Scripture study. I call it my annual study break. It’s also a time to evaluate how I
January 21, 2018 | Matthew 25:14-30 |
Americans love a success story. We love a winner. We may give out participation trophies to our kids, but once they’re grown up, we expect them to see second place as no better than last place.
But God’s economy is different than the world’s. His goal for you is not that you would be successful. God’s goal for you is that you would be faithful!
In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus told his disciples a parable to teach them his goal for them to be faithful with the talents he had entrusted to them until his return. We can be faithful with what the Lord has entrusted to us until his return.
January 14, 2018 | John 15:1-8 |
We have goals like: I want to be happy. We even tell our kids, “I just want you to be happy.” Or we have goals to be rich or to own a bigger house or a new car. Older people might be concerned about leaving their mark, having a legacy. But God wants you to be fruitful. And the only way to do this is through Jesus.
The gospel of John records that after the last supper, Jesus walked with his disciples out of Jerusalem towards the Garden of Gethsemane, telling them the parable of the vine and the branches along the way. In this parable, Jesus taught them that his goal for them was to abide in him that they might be fruitful. We can fulfill Christ’s goal for our lives to be fruitful by abiding in Him.
January 7, 2018 | Matthew 16:24 |
The new year is upon us and with it many of us are setting goals we’d like to accomplish this year. We want to be winners and leaders. We want to achieve greatness in some arena of life. We want self-fulfillment. These are admirable goals, yet the way the world seeks such goals is very different from the way the Lord would have us take. For the Lord teaches us that the way to winning is losing, the way to self-fulfillment is self-denial, the way of greatness is serving. He teaches that in order to become a great leader, you must first learn to be a follower.
The world’s path is very different from the Lord’s. The world’s way may seem to work for a season, but many of us have tried to climb the ladder of success only to find that it was leaning against the wrong building. A man achieves that big promotion, but loses his family in the process. A woman tries to be a super-wife, a super-mom and seek super fulfillment in her career, but all she feels is super-burned-out. A teenager wears the latest fashions, listens to the latest tunes and tries to use all the latest lingo, but still feels alone and unaccepted at school.
Yet, as people of faith, we are not to live as the world lives. We’re supposed to be different. We don’t follow a philosophy, we follow a Person. We don’t follow a system, we follow our Savior. In the book of Matthew, Jesus described what it meant to answer the call to come after Him and be one of His followers. We can answer the call to be a follower of Jesus.