Category: Uncategorized

If You Want to Know What God’s Will for Your Life is, Read This

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I know. That’s a pretty audacious claim. I get it. I bet you rolled your eyes when you read the title. Didn’t you! It’s okay. I would have too.

It sounds absurd for anyone to assert they know God’s will for others. But, I am asking you give me three minutes to read the rest of the blog.

I am certain I know God’s will for your life and mine.

“What is God’s will for my life?”

If you are asking this question, I can safely assume the following:

  1. That you are a follower of Jesus Christ
  2. You believe God created you for a reason and placed you on this planet earth at this particular time to accomplish God’s purpose
  3. That you are not sure what that reason or purpose is yet

Typically, when people are asking such a question it is because they are facing an important decision in life:

  • Should I marry him/her?
  • Should I take the new job offer?
  • What should I study in college?
  • etc.

It is good to ask God for guidance. But how do we know? How can we be certain what God’s will is?

I don’t know the particulars of whether you should marry him or her, or whether you should take the new job offer even though it might mean moving away from family and church.

But I do know one thing with absolute certainty about God’s will for your life.

AND I think it’s because we don’t get this part right that we get so many other things about God’s will confused in our lives.

Ready? Want to hear?

Here you go – God wants you in the disciple making business.

Whatever else it is that you are doing, if you’re not making disciples, that is not God’s will for your life.

You don’t have to ever wonder if this is God’s will or not. This is absolutely God’s will for every Christ-follower. God wants every follower to be about the business of making new disciples.

This poses a serious problem for us. How many of us Christians have shared our faith with someone and led someone to choose to be a disciple of Jesus Christ?

Yikes.

I know. Not many of us. And that’s a serious problem.

Perhaps, the answer to who shall I marry, what shall I study, should I take this new job opportunity lies in the making disciple thing.

I am suggesting that you answer such life questions by asking which of these things will help you to make disciples more effectively?

  • Will marrying him/her help me to make disciples?
  • Will choosing this career use all my God given talents and gifts so that my life can be used to make disciples as a teacher, engineer, plumber, electrician, lawyer, doctor, etc?

Perhaps, when we clearly prioritize the disciple making part of God’s will in our lives, decisions about other life questions will become clearer. Perhaps when we see all things in our life as a tool and an instrument to help us to be about making disciples that the questions to the particulars become crystal clear.

“Go and make disciples of all nations. Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:18-19)

Need Shalom? Go to the Source

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Mondays are Starbucks days. I read. I write. I pray. I journal.

A woman a couple of seats down was sipping on her coffee and charging her phone. Or she thought she was charging her phone. Except the outlet didn’t work where she sat. In fact, I came to learn, the outlets along this side of the Starbucks do not work at all. After a few minutes of sitting and sipping on her coffee, she checked her phone to discover that her phone wasn’t charging.

She tried multiple outlets along the wall. And when that didn’t work, she tried multiple chargers. She had two chargers with her! I was impressed. She was traveling with two chargers! Finally, one of the baristas noticed her struggling with the outlets to inform her that none of the outlets along this particular wall worked.

It wasn’t her chargers. It wasn’t the outlets. It was that there was no power along this wall. The outlets looked like outlets. They looked promising. But there was no power. No matter how hard she tried, no matter how many outlets or chargers she went through, she wasn’t ever going to get her phone charged along this wall.

Many things in this world promise life, joy, purpose, peace – shalom. They look like good sources of shalom. Only one problem: they don’t have power. They are all counterfeit. So when a new girl/boyfriend doesn’t work, we try a different outlet to find shalom. We try careers/getting wealthy. And when that doesn’t work, we trying a different outlet – vacations, friendships, children, etc.

There is nothing necessarily evil or bad in these things. It’s just that they don’t have power. They were not created to provide shalom. Only God can do that.

Need shalom? Go to the source. Plug into his power.

 

Absolute Devastation. Absolute Hope

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We have been praying for a little girl at a neighboring church who finally lost her battle to leukemia this morning. She was surrounded by her loved ones, church family, and the hospital staff. The doctors had told her family multiple times that she only had a few weeks left. But this time, the doctors were right.

When she was taken to the hospital two weeks ago, her dad told her pastor that this was it. She wasn’t coming home.

This little girl had thousands of people praying for her. She had rallied so many times before.

I can’t imagine what this must feel like for her parents.

Absolute devastation.

The pain, sadness, grief, anger, relief, loss, frustration, helplessness…

Absolute devastation.

 

We have been praying for a little girl who was received into glory this morning. She was born as a twin, but her brother never made it. She was the only one that made it through the birthing process. This morning, she was able to reunite with her twin brother for the first time since the womb!

We had been praying that she experience an incredible reunion with her loved ones, but most of all, with her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. She loved Jesus, but most importantly Jesus loved her. She took such comfort and strength in knowing that her short life here on earth was not the end of her. That God created her for eternity, and because Jesus had died for her sins, she would live forever in glory.

I can’t even begin to imagine what that must have been like. The reunion with her twin brother. She is in the presence of Jesus! She is surrounded by all the saints who have gone before her. All she knows and experiences is glory. That’s her reality! Wow! She is with Jesus!!!

She had rallied multiple times before, but this time…this time she was ready to go home to her twin brother, to her Lord and Savior Jesus. She was ready. She was so ready to be done with physical pain and misery. She was so ready for glory.

Absolute hope.

The joy, elation, relief, exaltation, freedom, wholeness, peace…

Absolute hope.

In a world without Jesus, these are exclusive. Death is the ultimate absolute devastation because it’s the end. One can’t have hope and devastation at the same time. They are an oxymoron.

Not so with Jesus. Even with Jesus, death still sucks. Death still hurts. The pain and loss is still absolutely devastating. But because of Jesus, there is absolute hope.

Hope doesn’t negate nor cancel the devastation. It’s just that devastation can’t negate nor cancel hope. They are both there. Absolutely. Completely. Hope and Devastation.

But in time, hope overcomes the devastation. Hope sustains. Hope lifts. Hope abounds.

Absolute hope.