Instructing and encouraging you to live your life as a disciple of Jesus
I write a lot on this topic, but from what I see in my own life and the lives of the Church at large, we’re simply not getting it. We are running out of time. Every moment we spend engaged in doing something other than for the Kingdom is a moment forever lost. It’s a moment that might just cost someone their eternal salvation. While we are content to watch the latest movie, surf the web, check Facebook, or feed our faces, time is ticking off the clock forever.
Ask almost any Christian at church on Sunday what their priorities are, and they will instinctively tell you that God is first and family second. Saying so simply does not make it true. If God were first in the lives of all who proclaimed to know Him, our world would not be in the mess it is today. For that matter, if family was indeed the second priority, we would not find the divorce rate among Christians to be statistically the same as that of non-Christians (The Christian Post). We have been taught what we’re supposed to say, but there is an absolute disconnect between our lips and our reality.
The problems of our world are so many and diverse that it may appear that there isn’t much we can do about them. On the surface, this may be true; it is very difficult, if not impossible, for any one of us to make a significant impact on the major ills of society. You have, however, probably heard the saying “As one person you can’t change the world, but you can change the world for one person”. This is where we have to focus. On our own we may never make a dent in world poverty, but we can adopt a person or a family and make certain they have enough to eat. On our own we may never be able to give shelter to all who are homeless, but we have the ability to provide a bed and shower to a single mom down on her luck.
Most of us, save for the most morbid, don’t sit around thinking of how short life truly is. I submit that there is value in contemplating this very thing. If we maintain our health and are genetically blessed, we have at most 90-100 years on this spinning ball of dirt. In the United States, the average lifespan for a man is 75.6 years, and a woman is 80.8. For all of the advances in Western medicine, that still leaves Americans curiously low at number 36 on the list of lifespan by Country (Wikipedia). In the grand scheme of things, 75-80 years is not a lot of time. Take away from this the fact that our first handful of years is not especially productive, and we wind up with less than 70 years to make a difference in our world.
One of my favorite Bible passages is Proverbs 30:8-9:
Keep falsehood and deceitful words far from me.
Give me neither poverty nor wealth;
feed me with the food I need.
Otherwise, I might have too much
and deny You, saying, “Who is the LORD?”
or I might have nothing and steal,
profaning the name of my God.
In our materialistic Western society, we are encouraged to constantly acquire and consume. If we could sum up our modern culture in one word, I think that word would be “more”. [Read more…] about Give Me Just Enough