FOCUSED ON THE ONE TASK

Life is tough enough as it is. It’s even tougher when we’re headed in the wrong direction.

One of the incredible abilities of Jesus was to stay on target. His life never got off track. He had no money, no computers, no jets, no administrative assistants or staff, yet Jesus did what many of us fail to do. He kept His life on course.

As Jesus looked across the horizon of His future, He could see many targets. Many flags were flapping in the wind, each of which He could have pursued. He could have been a political revolutionary. He could have been a national leader. But in the end He chose to be a Savior and save souls.

Anyone near Christ for any length of time heard it from Jesus Himself. “The Son of Man came to find lost people and save them.” (Luke 19:10)  “The Son of Man did not come to be served. He came to serve others and to give His life as a ransom for many people.” (Mark 10:45)

The heart of Christ was relentlessly focused on one task. The day He left the carpentry shop of Nazareth He had one ultimate aim -- the cross of Calvary. He was so focused that His final words were, “It is finished.” (John 19:30)

How could Jesus say He was finished? There were still the hungry to feed, the sick to heal, the untaught to instruct, and the unloved to love. How could He say He was finished? Simple. He had completed His designated task. His commission was fulfilled. The painter could set aside his brush, the sculptor lay down his chisel, the writer put down his pen. The job was done.

Wouldn’t you love to be able to say the same? Wouldn’t you love to look back on your life and know you had done what you were called to do?   

-- Max Lucado in “Just Like Jesus”

#6347

FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS

"And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?"  (Esther 4:14 NIV)

This past weekend my wife and I attended the retirement celebration for a former colleague and friend at the church I served for 25 years. In very specific ways, she told of her calling in regard to the many roles she has served there for the last eight years. I mentioned that God had called her “for such a time as this… and this… and this… and this.”

In moments of uncertainty, when fear or doubt whispers louder than faith, the biblical story of Esther reminds us that divine purpose often hides within ordinary circumstances. Her courage wasn’t born from confidence in herself -- it was rooted in the possibility that God had placed her exactly where she needed to be. “For such a time as this” isn’t just a phrase -- it’s a call to awaken to the sacred opportunities tucked inside our daily lives. Whether we stand in palaces or pews, boardrooms or kitchens, sports arenas or schools God invites us to respond with boldness, trusting that our presence, our voice, and our obedience may be the very answer to someone’s prayer.

My colleague’s presence, her voice and her obedience were the answer to many people’s prayers, mine included. Thanks for responding to your call, Lina. 

-- Rev. David T. Wilkinson, SOUND BITES Ministry™ 

#6232

DIVINE INTERRUPTIONS

Have you ever been interrupted by a phone call, an e-mail, or a knock on the door from someone wanting your immediate attention? They didn’t check your calendar first to see if you were available. They just barged into your life. A SOUND BITES subscriber once shared with me a quote that resonated with me: “The most important moments rarely come at a convenient time.”

The Bible is full of stories about people who were rudely interrupted by God. We read them and long to have the kind of adventure they experienced. Yet when God interrupts us, are we willing to respond on a moment's notice?  Divine interruptions are often the pivot points of transformation in Scripture. Here are several compelling examples where God steps in and reroutes someone’s life, often in dramatic fashion.

God interrupts Abraham’s settled life with a call to leave everything familiar and journey to an unknown land (Genesis 12). This moment launches the covenantal story of faith. While tending sheep, Moses is interrupted by a bush that burns but isn’t consumed (Exodus 3). God calls him to confront Pharaoh and lead Israel out of Egypt -- a radical shift from shepherd to liberator. As a boy, Samuel hears God calling in the night (1 Samuel 3). It’s an interruption that marks the beginning of his prophetic ministry. Mary’s quiet life is interrupted by a divine messenger announcing she will bear the Son of God (Luke 1). Her “yes” changes history. The Samaritan Woman comes for water and leaves with living water (John 4). Jesus interrupts her routine and reveals her deepest need -- and her purpose. Jesus appears post-resurrection to Thomas in a locked room, interrupting doubt with presence and peace (John 20). Thomas moves from skepticism to worship. Jesus interrupts Peter’s workday with a miraculous catch and a call to become a “fisher of men” (Luke 5). Saul, a persecutor of Christians, is blinded by a heavenly light and hears Jesus speak (Acts 9). This interruption transforms him into Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles.

Divine interruptions often come when we least expect them -- during ordinary tasks, moments of rebellion, or seasons of despair. But they’re never random. They’re invitations to deeper purpose, greater trust, and holy transformation. For me, it was a phone call on a Friday night in March of 1985, from the former pastor of my church who was now living 500 miles away. As I look back on it, it was God calling me into ministry in the midst of an ordinary life -- a divine interruption. 

-- Rev. David T. Wilkinson, SOUND BITES Ministry™ 

#6197

DISCIPLESHIP INCLUDES EVERYTHING

“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.”  (1 Corinthians 6:19-20 NIV)

A disciple of Jesus is not necessarily one devoted to doing specifically religious things as that is usually understood. To repeat, I am learning from Jesus how to lead my life, my whole life, my real life.

So as His disciple I am not necessarily learning how to do religious things, either as part of “full-time service” or as a “part-time service.” My discipleship to Jesus is, within clearly definable limits, not a matter of what I do, but of how I do it. And it covers everything, “religious” or not. 

-- Dallas Willard in “The Divine Conspiracy”

#6196

TWELVE ORDINARY MEN – Part 2 of 4

Jesus said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and He must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” Then He said to them all: “Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for Me will save it.”  (Luke 9:22-24 NIV)

It was a brief but intensive schedule of discipleship. And when it was over, on the night of Jesus’ betrayal, “all the disciples forsook Him and fled” (Matthew 26:56). From an earthly point of view, the training program looked like a monumental failure. It seemed the disciples had forgotten or ignored everything Christ had ever taught them about taking up the cross and following Him. In fact, their own sense of failure was so profound that they went back to their old vocations for a time. And even at that, it appeared they would fail (John 21:3-4).

But encouraged by the risen Lord, they returned to their apostolic calling. Empowered by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, they valiantly undertook the task to which Jesus called them. The work they subsequently began continues today, two thousand years later. They are living proof that God’s strength is made perfect in weakness. In and of themselves they were clearly not sufficient for the task (cf. 2 Corinthians 2:16). But God led them in triumph in Christ, and through them He diffused “the fragrance of His knowledge in every place” (v. 14). 

-- Excerpts from “Twelve Ordinary Men: How the Master Shaped His Disciples for Greatness and What He Wants to Do with You” by John MacArthur

#6085

TWELVE ORDINARY MEN – Part 1 of 4

“Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, He called His disciples to Him and chose twelve of them, whom He also designated apostles: Simon (whom He named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.” (Luke 6:12-16 NIV)

The Twelve were personally selected and called by Christ. He knew them as only their Creator could know them (cf. John 1:47). In other words, He knew all their faults long before He chose them, He even knew Judas would betray Him (John 6:70; 13:21-27), and yet He chose the traitor anyway and gave him all the same privileges and blessings He gave to the others.

Think about the ramifications of this: From our human perspective, the propagation of the gospel and the founding of the church hinged entirely on twelve men whose most outstanding characteristic was their ordinariness. They were chosen by Christ and trained for a time that is best measured in months, not years. He taught them the Scriptures and theology. He discipled them in the ways of godly living (teaching them and showing them how to pray, how to forgive, and how to serve one another with humility). He gave them moral instruction. He spoke to them of things to come. And He employed them as His instruments to heal the sick, cast out demons, and do other miraculous works. Three of them -- Peter, James and John -- even got a brief glimpse of Him in glory on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-9). 

-- Excerpts from “Twelve Ordinary Men: How the Master Shaped His Disciples for Greatness and What He Wants to Do with You” by John MacArthur

#6084

BECOMING WHO GOD WANTS ME TO BE

“I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well.”  (Psalm 139:14 NKJV)

God does not call me to fit a certain mold, nor does He want to press out a bunch of cookie-cutter Christians, each exactly alike. No, when God created me, He made me a unique individual with particular gifts and abilities. This is my true self, and as I become this person that God intended, I find that I am happier and more free. I am also more united with the Holy Spirit, able to take the place God calls me to in His kingdom.  

-- Elizabeth Prentiss in “Stepping Heavenward”

#5690

CALLED TO SELF-DENIAL

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”  (Philippians 2:3-4 NIV)

Self-denial conjures up in our minds all sorts of groveling and self-hatred. We imagine that it most certainly means rejection of our individuality and will probably lead to various forms of self-mortification.

On the contrary, Jesus called us to self-denial without self-hatred. Self-denial is imply a way of coming to understand that we do not have to have our own way. Our happiness is not dependent upon getting what we want…

Self-denial is not the same thing as self-contempt. Self-contempt claims that we have no worth, and even if we did have worth we should reject it. Self-denial declares that we are of infinite worth and shows us how to realize it. Self-contempt denies the goodness of the creation; self-denial affirms that it was indeed good. Jesus made the ability to love ourselves the prerequisite for our reaching out to others. (Matthew 22:39) 

-- Richard J. Foster in “Celebration of Discipline”

#5364

THAT ALL-TIME RELIGION

“Calling the crowd to Him with His disciples, Jesus said to them, ‘If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.”  (Mark 8:34)

I am not here to please the dominant culture or to serve any all-show, no-go bureaucracies. I live to please my Lord and Savior. My spiritual taste buds have graduated from fizz and froth to Fire and Ice. Sometimes I’m called to sharpen the cutting edge, and sometimes to blunt the cutting edge. Don’t give me that old-time religion. Don’t give me that new-time religion. Give me that all-time religion that’s as hard as rock and soft as snow.

I’ve stopped trying to make life work, and started trying to make life sing. I’m finished with the secondhand sensations; third-rate dreams; low-risk, high-rise trades; and goose-stepping crusades. I no longer live by and for anything but everything God-breathed, Christ-centered, and Spirit-driven. 

-- Leonard Sweet, excerpted from his “Magna Carta of Trust” published in his book “A Cup of Coffee at the Soul Cafe”

UNIQUELY YOU

"He gave... to each one as much as he could handle."  (Matthew 25:15 NCV)

Da Vinci painted one Mona Lisa. Beethoven composed one Fifth Symphony. And God made one version of you. He custom designed you for a one-of-a-kind assignment. Mine like a gold digger the unique-to-you nuggets from your life. When God gives an assignment, He also gives the skill. Study your skills, then, to reveal your assignment. Look at you. Your uncanny ease with numbers. Your quenchless curiosity about chemistry. Others stare at blueprints and yawn; you read them and drool. "I was made to do this," you say.

Our Maker gives assignments to people, to each according to each one's unique ability. As He calls, He equips. Look back over your life. What have you consistently done well? What have you loved to do? Stand at the intersection of your affections and successes and find your uniqueness. 

-- Max Lucado in “Cure for the Common Life”

#5265

A CALLING FOR ALL OF US

Jesus said, “Follow Me.” (Luke 5:27b)

This calling is for every child of God. It’s not just for the Jeremiahs, the Moses, the Abrahams, the Davids, the Matthews, Marks, Lukes, and Johns. It’s not just for the Augustines, the Luthers, the Wesleys, the Billy Sundays, or the Billy Grahams. It’s not just for pastors, missionaries, Christian stars, and personalities. It’s for all those people. It’s for little me and little you.

There’s only one bright morning star, and that’s Jesus. Those two words that Christ said, “Follow Me,” changed the world, as millions since have risen up to follow the call. What is this calling I’m talking about? It is this. It’s Luke, chapter 5. It’s Jesus saying to Peter, “Peter, will you follow Me?” And then in John 21, “Peter, will you love Me?” And again “Peter, will you die for Me?”

Will you honor Me? Will you live for Me? Will you die for Me? That’s the call. And every single believer is called to this: to this fellowship, to this maturity, to this discipleship. It’s for every child of God, and that means me and that means you. 

--  Adapted from “Side by Side: A Handbook for Disciple-Making for a New Century,” Steve & Lois Rabey, General Editors

#5135

PETER WENT FISHING

When I talk to people about serving God, one of the saddest responses I hear is, “God doesn’t want me. Not after what I’ve done.” They assume God is just like a lot of people they know. He writes us off. He holds grudges. We’ll never meet His standards. Our mistakes are many, our failures are well known, and our reputation is shot.

Don’t you think Peter must have felt this way? Here’s a guy Jesus personally chose and spent a lot of time with. It had to mean something when Jesus called him the Rock -- what guy wouldn’t like being given that name?

But after he did exactly what Jesus told him he would do -- denying Him at the moment of crisis -- Peter retreated to his old life and figured he was off the list. Jesus had made it a point to tell him he’d fail. Why would He do that? Peter probably thought Jesus was saying, “You’re not going to make it after all. Watch how you screw up in a few hours.”

Peter went fishing, the only other life he knew. That’s it for me. My time came, and I struck out. Out there on the boat that early morning, he reflected on the shipwreck of all his dreams. Jesus had qualified him, and that was a miracle. Peter had disqualified himself, and that was a tragedy.

Then he looked up to see a figure on the shore. Against all odds, it was Jesus, waving at him, telling him there was still work to do, and what was he doing out on that boat? I still choose you. 

-- Kyle Idleman in “The End of Me: Where Real Life in the Upside-Down Ways of Jesus Begins” 

#5097

WHAT’S YOUR PROBLEM?

Growth is not the ability to avoid problems. Growth is the ability to handle larger and more interesting problems.

One of the great questions to ask somebody is “What’s your problem?” And you might want to do that right now. We ought to ask each other pretty regularly, “What’s your problem?” by which I mean, “Do you have a problem worthy of your best energies, worthy of your life?”

What are you devoting yourself to solve? How do you want the world to be different because you’re in it? People who follow Jesus ask this question: “God, what problem in Your world would You like to use me to address?” Followers of Jesus intentionally embrace problems. 

-- John Ortberg in “All the Places to Go… How Will You Know?”

#4969

THE FIRE WITHIN - Part 1

“When they saw who [Jesus] was, He disappeared. They said to each other. ‘It felt like a fire burning in us when Jesus talked to us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us.” (Luke 24:31-32 NCV)

Don’t you love that verse? They knew they had been with Jesus because of the fire within them. God reveals His will by setting a torch in your soul. He gave Jeremiah a fire for hard hearts. He gave Nehemiah a fire for a forgotten city. He set Abraham on fire for a land he’d never seen. He set Isaiah on fir with a vision he couldn’t resist. Forty years of fruitless preaching didn’t extinguish the fire of Noah. Forty years of wilderness wandering didn’t douse the passion of Moses. Jericho couldn’t slow Joshua, and Goliath didn’t deter David. There was a fire within them.

And isn’t there one in you? Want to know God’s will for your life? Then answer this question: What ignites your heart? Forgotten orphans? Untouched nations? The inner city? The outer limits? Heed the fire within!

Do you have a passion to sing? Then sing! Are you stirred to manage? Then manage! Do you ache for the ill? Then treat them! Do you hurt for the lost? The reach them! 

-- Max Lucado in “The Great House of God”

#4944

MRS. WHITE’S COMMITMENT

Her name was Mrs. White, and she spoke passionately about her work among the desperate and poor in India. Retiring after a lifetime of service, she had a million stories to share. She showed some slides, read from scriptures, told some stories, and touched a lot of hearts. The speaking tour was a kind of valedictory , one last opportunity to spread the news and to raise consciousness about the amazing work of the church going on halfway around the world.

Many in the congregation that evening were inspired. They wrote checks, gathered information, renewed their personal enthusiasm for missions, and added the important legacy of the retired missionary to their ongoing commitment  in prayer. Some even felt led by the Holy Spirit to consider a calling to work overseas.

“Mrs. White,” one man said as he stood up during question time, ”you must love India very deeply. I’m sure you’re going to miss that part of the world now that you have returned to the United States. I know it’s going to be very hard for you.”

“Not at all,” she smiled ruefully. “I hated every minute of it. It is the filthiest, most corrupt place I have ever seen. The people I worked with were disease-ridden and desperate. The conditions were deplorable. I lost my husband and one child to that terrible place. If I never go back there this side of eternity, it will be one day too soon.”

The silence in the church was deafening. The congregation was stunned, and the man who asked the question just stood there with his mouth hanging open. Everyone wondered if the wiry old lady with a kick in her attitude had maybe lost her mind.

“But,” she continued, after a theatrical pause, “for the sake of the love of Jesus I would go back there tomorrow.”

Tears rolled down the elderly missionary’s sun-wrinkled cheeks, and she gripped the sides of the podium tightly. Mrs. White fairly glowed with the radiance of devotion.

It wasn’t humanitarianism that drove her life’s work; it wasn’t the lure or romanticism of oversees service; and it wasn’t even a deep, abiding affection for the people she served that had ripened and matured over time. It was Jesus whom she loved and served. A deep, authentic love for God gave real teeth to Mrs. White’s commitment to be a disciple, and this love moved her from contemplation out into the world.

-- Derek Maul in “Get Real: A Spiritual Journey for Men”


#4629

THE CALLING OF GOD

“With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of His calling, and that by His power He may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith. We pray this so that the name of our LORD Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the LORD Jesus Christ.”  (2 Thessalonians 1:11-12 NIV)

What is the calling of God? In every life, calling may manifest itself in a different way, but the result will be the same. God's calling does not allow us to separate the sacred from the secular. We have one life to live for Him in every aspect of existence. The calling of God challenges us to bring Him into our most mundane activities, breathing life into our smallest tasks, and giving power to our greatest challenges.

-- Stephen Arterburn in “The Power Book”


#4527

NO HIGHER CALLING

“My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”  (Galatians 2:20 NLT)

“I have come to see clearly that life is more than self. It is more than doing what I want, striving for what will benefit me, dreaming of all I can be. Life is all about my relationship with God. There is no higher calling, no loftier dream, and no greater goal than to live, breathe, and be poured out for Jesus Christ." (Jamie in Brother Andrew's "The Calling”)

-- Brother Andrew in “The Narrow Road: Stories of Those Who Walk This Road Together”

#4347

PAIN CAN PUT LIFE IN PERSPECTIVE

Affliction is particularly effective in helping us reevaluate our priorities.  When Thomas Chalmers became pastor of the church at Kilmany, Scotland in 1803, he was a young man of twenty-three with little real interest in religion.  He had taken the parish primarily so that he could also teach mathematics and astronomy.

As time went by, Chalmers neglected sermon preparation and the care of his people.  The church went into steady and precipitous decline.  After several years he was stricken with a serious illness.  For four months he was unable to leave his sick room, and for almost a year he did not preach.  Slowly he came to realize that his view of Christianity as simply an ethical system was not sufficient to see him through this valley of the shadow of death.  There in the lonely place of his illness he faced himself and the shallowness of his beliefs, until he experienced a dramatic religious conversion.

In the years that followed, Chalmers became the most powerful preacher in Scotland.  And with it, he came to have a compelling social conscience.  The finest pulpits in Scotland were available to him, but he also chose to minister to the poorest of the population in special services on a tanner's second story.  A century later Lord Roseberry said of him, "An illness lifted him into a higher sphere, and he soared aloft."  Illness can do that to us, because it helps us get our values in order.

-- J. Ellsworth Kalas in “If Experience Is Such a Good Teacher Why Do I Keep Repeating the Course?”


#4261

HIGH EXPECTATIONS

Strange as it might seem, one of the greatest gifts that we can give to each other in a family is high expectations.  Parents ought to have high expectations of their children, and children ought to have high expectations of their parents.  Husbands and wives ought to have high expectations of each other, even as God has high expectations for all of His children.  "Therefore, I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling." (Ephesians 4:1 NLT).  The high expectations that we have of each other call out of us the best that we have.  We become good people and faithful family members, in part, because we are expected to be so.  All of us tend to try to measure up to what the significant others in our lives expect us to be.  The high expectations of those we love are responsible for much of the good that we find in ourselves.

-- Tony Campolo in “Following Jesus Without Embarrassing God”


#4226

AN UNCOMFORTABLE CALLING

“Then Jesus told them, ‘Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone.’”  (Mark 16:15 NLT)

“Do you love Me enough to tell them?” Christianity is rare among the world religions in containing an explicit command to tell unbelievers the Good News and to urge them to convert. It is an uncomfortable calling… This obligation to evangelize is perhaps the aspect most resented by those outside the faith, and most neglected by those inside. It is an awkward calling. But it is commanded of Jesus, as blunt as the calls to love our enemies and to care for the poor… 

-- Frederica Mathewes-Green


#4178