Planning For Tomorrow

We make all sorts of plans.  We plan our vacations, plan for retirement, plan our work schedule, plan when we will have kids, plan our class schedule and plan on getting our haircut.  We strategize how to succeed, how to invest, how to stay healthy and how to raise our children.  There is though only one strategy in the Kingdom of God and it is as simple as turning on your computer or starting your car.  In Jesus' final instructions before going to the Cross He provided the Disciples with the only plan He had for them to operate as children of God and succeed in what the Father had in store for them.    He put it metaphorically so that it would be clear as day to us what it was.  "Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.  I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing". (John 15:4-5 NIV) Our laser-like attention and focus must be on this one effort.  Remain in Christ and let nothing take you from it.  Anything that distracts you from keeping your mind fixed on Christ must be hated with all the disgust you can muster.    It is not that we are to leave this world in abandonment to some monastery in the hills.  God never gave His disciples an assignment like that.  He left them in the hard scramble of life and did not pull them from it until He called them home.  It is in the crash of living that we are to remain in Christ and stay there in Him when anything from disaster to triumph arrives.   There is no panic or fear of "night" for the one whose mind is fixed on Christ.  We can be as peaceful as a cooing dove if we will do this one thing without fail.  Look to Christ in the earthquake and the storm, in the sunset and the gentle breeze.  Refuse to give in to the temptation to fuss about what you will wear or what you will eat or how mistreated you are but glue your mind to Christ and tomorrow will "take care of itself".

But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves.  For I will give you...   Luke 21:14-15 NIV

What Do You Want?

It was such a seemingly harmless request of James and John.  “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.”  We too have this way of going about our business.  It is in fact the essence of much Christianity.  God is the god of doing for us what we ask.  Whether it be honor, achievement, affection or some sort of toy, we expect God to give us something so that we can have a good religion, a comfortable religion.  The Christian world leans into stuff as much as the sensible unbeliever.  We have seen it; much of the Christian world grabs and gathers just like all the good neighbors who never open Bibles.  When Jesus asked the brothers if they could drink the cup He was drinking and be baptized with His same baptism, James and John hardly blinked.  “Of course they could”, they insisted.  It turns out they were going to drink from the same cup and be baptized with the same baptism but they were as dumb as doorknobs when it came to realizing what that meant.  And fortunately for us, so are we generally when we enter into real discipleship.  This is when many good Christian people start to fade into the shadows.  They slip away into the night.  Are they willing to take rejection, loss, painful ministries or isolation?  Will they absorb as Christ did the damage brought by world sin?  A famous missionary once wrote, “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”  How many Christians believe that?  Is there much real sacrifice and painful holiness in the Church or are most of our claims of following Christ lip service.  Many name Christ as a giver of good things but stop short of taking up the cross.  How many of us will drink the cup He drank and not squirm out of His baptism?  Will you be His disciple and not a caricature of what one is?  The call is clear.  Come follow me!  To do so means that you must take the path through Gethsemane and into Golgotha before you will ever make much progress with Christ as Lord.

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. Mark 10: 45 NIV

Noticed

The Kingdom of God is not about you or I getting a footing with God through some skill or talent we possess.  We are not here to make something of ourselves; not here to show ourselves off but to exalt Jesus Christ crucified.  This is no small task as it requires all of our effort.  Our soul is so bent by sin that we cannot naturally give Jesus Christ center stage and few ever really try to make a go of it.  But the disciple will; the one who has latched onto Christ and loves Him dearly will.  Take the resurrected Lord into your mind and let Him rule over your will.  You will know that Christ is not yet ruling over your abilities and talents if it matters that critics come after you or your friends or family hardly notice your "good works".  It is your opportunity to watch the Lord Jesus work His way through your disposition each time you see your effort go unnoticed and unrecognized.  Sometimes you choose this, sometimes it chooses you but either way, let out a quiet sigh and be thankful God has let you be a bit more hidden in Christ.  For you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. Colossians 3: 3