Taking It to Work:
We, even as Christ-followers, are so easily tricked into thinking that the end game is just enjoying life in security and comfort. It is a common teaching of our culture, and it is very hard not to be driven by those things. Comfort and security are the call for almost every thinking animal on the face of the planet, and it is not wrong that we are part of that. It is very natural. Although, for the Christ-follower, we have a higher calling, a supernatural calling that supersedes, or should supersede, the normal desires of mere earthly comfort and security.
What is that? It is service to a loving King who saved and redeemed us. He called us each by name from a life of non-fulfillment, and eventual misery, to a life of eternal meaning and everlasting joy.
When we accept His gift of salvation, we in-turn are asked to have a holy desire to serve His Kingdom, even if it means our kingdom has to fall to second place. This comes easily for some, but for others, we are so ingrained in the culture of “more, more, more”, “mine, mine, mine” that we can lose sight of the higher goal – His Kingdom. Matthew chapter 6 is where Jesus talks specifically about this, and makes it crystal clear. When we have this goal in mind, that all we are and earn, are really to benefit God’s Kingdom and not our own, and we strive for doing just that; He takes care of our kingdom, and we never have to fear differently!
The ambition, talent and resources we have are for much higher things. Seek Him in His Word, that you may remember your higher calling, and find His true satisfaction in pursuing it, as His Word works in you, today.
John 10:10 (ESV) -The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
Matt 6:32-33 (ESV) – For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
Matt 6:19-21 (ESV) – “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Luke 12:34 (ESV) – For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Listening to the Holy Spirit (Rhema):
The sluggard knows not the way of the Father. In the work of the Father there is reason that profits all who answer His call. Why are you driven? What is the call of your work? The desire of self is effective for worldly gain, but the child of holiness is worn, still empty, even after the pursuit shows success – a heart and life empty, with accounts full. Success of the earthly is not gain for the holy. Pursuit and capture of the eternal things are the only satisfaction. Those things that cannot pass the threshold of heaven are not worthy of pursuit. Seek worldly gain only to gain the things not of this world. Coffers not traded and spent, but only for idols of comfort, power, home and vehicle, which have no value to the heart. But riches traded for the valuables of the truly wealthy will satisfy and never tarnish, for they are preserved in their great price of eternal measure. Seek first for these things, and your means will be provided, your ambitions used, and you will not be called a fool in the lasting age. Hunger for the higher things. Expend for these, and by My hand you will be filled.
