I’m an extremely driven person with enough dreams and aspirations to span a couple of lifetimes. One of the biggest challenges in dealing with my personality is remembering to focus on the most important things in life. In my case, that means taking time to concentrate on Jesus and make the adjustments necessary in my life to be a consistent follower of His. There is a tendency in our Western culture to be very busy; nobody really cares what you are busy doing, just as long as you are busy. We’ve lost the simplicity of previous generations, and we may be losing our souls in the process.
Archives for June 2012
Live Simply; Give Generously.
Two simple statements that should mark the lives of every follower of Christ are “live simply” and “give generously”. In the Western world where we find ourselves the wealthiest people in history, it can be difficult to remember the way in which we have been called to live. One of my favorite passages in the Bible is Proverbs 30:7-9 which says “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.” What an amazing way to live – relying on God for daily provision, finding no pride or identity in our possessions, but rather simply trusting in God to provide.
Becoming an Intentional Disciple
Too many self-proclaimed Christians believe that maturity in Christ will happen automatically over time. They think the longer they have known Him, the more they will know about Him. None of our other relationships work this way, so why should we expect our relationship with God to be the exception? We might have the same mail delivery person for twenty years, but odds are we will never actually know them. We probably know their name and might even recognize and wave to them at the grocery store, but that is generally as deep as our relationship will ever go. Unless we make a conscious effort to understand what makes the other person tick, to share dreams and aspirations together, to help one another in a time of need – until we do those things, we can’t truly be in a relationship with them. Yet we think with God this dynamic will somehow be different. We believe that since He is God and we said a prayer to Him, our relationship will magically blossom and all will be well.