It IS Us vs the World
by David Brenneman
So many place, or even a better word is overlay, worldly expectations, worldly significance, over the life that is to be about sanctification in Christ Jesus. Certifications, education, are not a requirement for sanctification.
We are actually failing life when we seek success as the world defines it.
When we indeed deny ourselves, take up our own cross and follow Jesus life has a whole different set of priorities.
We are not our own, we were bought with a price, the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
Isn't that much more important than anything that the world holds dear?
"All I once held dear, built my life upon
All this world reveres and wars to own;
All I once thought gain I have counted loss,
Spent and worthless now compared to this.
Chorus
Knowing You, Jesus, knowing You
There is no greater thing
You’re my all, You’re the best
You’re my joy, my righteousness,
And I love You Lord.
Verse 2
Now my heart’s desire is to know You more,
To be found in You and known as Yours,
To possess by faith what I could not earn
All surpassing gift of righteousness
Chorus
Knowing You, Jesus, knowing You
There is no greater thing
You’re my all, You’re the best
You’re my joy, my righteousness,
And I love You Lord.
Verse 3
Oh to know the power of Your risen life,
And to know You in Your sufferings;
To become like You in Your death, my Lord,
So with You to live and never die.
Chorus
Knowing You, Jesus, knowing You
There is no greater thing
You’re my all, You’re the best
You’re my joy, my righteousness,
And I love You Lord."
- Knowing You, Graham Kendrick
Ever notice that education, status, really didn't mean a whole lot to Jesus?
Ever notice that in Hell, being a former rich man meant nothing in regards to his place in Hell?
We really really get duped into believing that we must continue to be pursuing education to be more eleven in the eyes of God. The lessons of Ecclesiastes sure seems to have fallen by the wayside.
Jesus comes to your house. He knocks on your door. Of course you bid Him to enter. What an unexpected pleasure! But in an instant you realize all the things that clutter your home that are not God honoring. They are things that point to you and not your relationship with Jesus. You are immediately embarrassed. At least we'll only be in the living room or the dining room, maybe the kitchen. But then Jesus starts going into rooms on His own. What do you do? You can't exactly tell Him that He can't do that.
We often don't really really stop to consider that there are no hidden rooms to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
The Bible says that it is He who searches the hearts and knows our every thought. Every single intention of every single person. Psalms says He knows our going out and our coming in.
If we look at the lives of the Apostles we see people who would be labeled as non-conformists. They did not place value on what the world deemed as important.
Our world places great value on health and education. Both consume people's lives. Both take us from our relationship with Jesus when it's all that people are doing.
What are you doing to get to know your Savior?
We also buy into the lie that we need education and a proper diet to be successful in this world. We must do what we can to make everyone happy.
Jesus came to save you and I. He said if people hate us for living for Him, remember it hated Him first. He said that we would face opposition for living for Him. People loved the darkness rather than the Light. People are kinder to their own than those who are saved in Christ Jesus.
Getting an education isn't a sin. Sitting on your laurels after getting it is. Getting degrees, etc. and using them as an excuse to stop doing what the Spirit says you're to be doing is.
Many people miss a line from the movie Field of Dreams. The guy who missed out on a baseball career because his first at bat never happened. The game was over. Ray thought that it would kill a man to be that close to his dream and not have it. That it would be a shame. The guy became a doctor instead of continuing in baseball. The now Doctor tells Ray, no son, it would have been a shame to only have been a Doctor for a few minutes rather than play baseball all his life. His becoming a Doctor changed countless lives.
We miss out on the full life that Jesus, with the Spirit, intended for us to have by pursuing lives outside of the Will of God.
We miss out on fulfilling out calling by filling our lives with things that do not matter in light of eternity.
We miss out on the relationship with Jesus that we could be having by setting the world's standards above those found in the Word of God.
We miss out by forging our own personal slice of Heaven here on Earth at the cost of living for Jesus.
The world wants your compliance.
The world wants you to live for you.
The world wants you to be silent about Jesus.
The world wants you out of the fields that are ripe for the harvest.
The world wants you to embrace what it deems as all important.
Jesus said, come, follow Me. Do what I do. Live as I lived. Be who I am making you to be in Me. Let go of self.
To be honest, I have certifications, I have education, I have diplomas. I have a very high IQ. I count it all as loss, just as Paul wrote.
"More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ," Philippians 3:8 NASB95.
Many turn from what the Spirit wants and needs them to be doing in order to live their dreams. They'll live for Jesus after they get what they want out of life.
Take a good look at your life.
Quit deceiving yourself, if you have been, and look realistically at your surroundings.
Are you truly trying to get to know Jesus or is that something for another day?
The world wants you to put it off for another day because the more you do the harder it will be for others to come to Christ for salvation.
Realize you are being played by the world.
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