Don’t Bail Out

January 24, 2012 Leave a Comment

A pilot announced to his passengers that three of the plane’s four engines had conked out. A few seconds later he came out of the cockpit, walked past them, and put on a parachute. He opened up the back door and just before jumping said, “Don’t worry folks, I’m going for help.”

This world is filled with people who will bail out on a difficult circumstance when the sledding gets rough. They won’t be going for help either; they’ll be looking out for themselves. Sadly, too many times this applies to how we Christians relate to following Jesus.

One of the most somber questions that Jesus ever asked is found in John 6:67. Let me set the context for you. A tremendous crowd of 5,000 men (not counting women and children) gathered around Jesus to hear Him teach near the slope of a mountain hovering over the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus miraculously fed this crowd by using a young boy’s lunch of five loaves of bread and two small fish. Following this miracle, the crowd tried to take Him by force and make Him their earthly king. Wanting no part of such an election, He dispersed them, commanded the twelve to get in a boat and cross over to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, and went up into a mountain alone.

That night a terrible windstorm swept down onto the Sea of Galilee, preventing the twelve from making much headway to the other shore. When they reached a state of exhaustion and despair for their lives, Jesus walked on the water, calmed the storm, and joined them in the boat. At that point the boat was miraculously transported to the other shore.

The following morning many of the original crowd got into boats and crossed over to find Jesus. They caught up with Him in a synagogue in Capernaum. Shortly afterward, Jesus accused these people of only following Him for His miracles. Then He launched into a weird teaching about Him being the bread of life and how they needed to eat of His flesh. You talk about throwing cold water onto a fickle bunch! When the teaching was finished, they turned away and never followed Jesus again. Just as He had said, they were only interested in following Him as long as the miracles were rolling and the teachings were pleasant and easy to understand.

It’s at that critical moment that Jesus looked at His chosen twelve and asked the penetrating question, “Do you also want to go away?” Some of them may have, but Peter spoke up before anybody else could answer. He said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also, we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Good for you, Peter!

Tell me, Christian, are you right now going through a difficult time with the Lord? Are you confused? Are you frustrated? Are you out of heart? Has He hurt your feelings? Trust me, you aren’t the first to go down such a road. The question is, how will you respond? Will you turn back from following Christ? Or will you, like Peter, understand that turning away from Him is akin to turning away from the source of life and truth? Please understand that I’m not talking about a Christian possibly losing his or her salvation. As the old saying goes, “once saved, always saved.” What I’m talking about is breaking fellowship with the Lord and bailing out on what He is trying to teach you through your difficult times. Trust me, such a bail out might provide a modicum of temporary relief, but in the end you’ll come to know all too well that you should have stayed on the plane with your Savior.

Filed under Adversity, Backsliding, Choices, Christ's miracles, Commitment, Disappointment, Discipleship, Eternal Security, faithfulness, perseverance, Problems, Rebellion, Truth Tagged with , , , , ,

Making Perception Align With Reality

January 16, 2012 1 Comment

The owner of a candy store noticed that one of his salesgirls would have customers lined up waiting for her even as his other girls stood by doing nothing. Perplexed by this, he went to the girl and asked for her secret. She answered, “The other girls scoop up more than the requested amount of candy and then start taking away. I scoop up less and then add to it.”

It’s all about perception, isn’t it? Those customers were perceiving themselves to be getting more candy from that salesgirl, even though they really weren’t. Of course, that’s the problem with perception: it usually bears little semblance to the truth.

We Christians must admit that the perception lost people have of us usually isn’t all that glowing. They perceive us to be hypocritical, judgmental, bigoted, closed-minded, ignorant, irrational, and angry. Admittedly, some Christians can rightly be classified under each of those adjectives. There are many Christians, however, who can’t, and these are the ones who can’t be so easily explained away by lost people.

A world traveler visited the land of what had once been a savage race of cannibals. Actually, the only reason the man could even visit the land was because Christian missionaries had previously blazed the trail, learned the language, and won many of those cannibals to Christ. As the traveler struck up a conversation with one of the natives, he couldn’t resist sharing his views on Christianity with the native. He said, “I myself have no use for the religion. I don’t believe the Bible to be anything other than a man-made book. I don’t believe that Jesus was God in the flesh. And I don’t believe that I will somehow be changed if I believe in Him as my Savior.” To that the native answered, “My friend, if Jesus does not change lives, you would be in a pot by now.”

Is that story real? I doubt it. But could it be? Absolutely! As 2 Corinthians 5:17 says:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold all things have become new.

The test that we Christians must pass daily is that of making the reality of this change align with the world’s perception of us. Putting it another way, we’ve got to act “new.” If we continue to commit our same old sins and hold to our same old wrong attitudes, that will create a false perception of us. Lost people will look at us and think, “I guess that Jesus thing didn’t work out so well.” On the other hand, if we exhibit a genuine change from cannibalistic to cordial (to go back to my illustration), from hypocritical to holy, from angry to affable, from judgmental to just, etc., then they won’t be able to dismiss us so quickly. And that is why it is so important that we walk the walk in addition to talking the talk.

Filed under Change, Discipleship, Doing Good, Dress and Appearance, faithfulness, Personal Holiness, Righteousness, salvation, Sin, Truth Tagged with , , , , ,

The Keeper of the Spring

January 3, 2012 2 Comments

In a little hamlet, the town council held a meeting to discuss how to cut expenses. They studied over the budget more seriously than ever and noticed an item that had previously escaped their attention. It was a small fee that was paid each month to someone labeled “The Keeper of the Spring.”

As the council members tried to figure out just exactly who “The Keeper of the Spring” was and why he was paid a fee each month, only one member could even offer a clue. He said, “I think there is an old man who lives near the top of the mountain, and he cleans out all the springs and creeks that flow down to the river that fills the reservoir that provides the town’s drinking water.”

The other council members didn’t dispute the answer, but they didn’t see the need to keep paying the fee either. One said, “We’ve never even seen this man.” Another said, “That’s right, so how can we be sure that he’s doing his job?” A third added, “If he was an old man, he might even be dead by now.” So the council voted unanimously to stop paying “The Keeper of the Spring” and sent out a letter of dismissal to the mountaintop address to which the fee had always been sent.

A few months later the town’s citizens began to notice that their drinking water wasn’t as clear and sparkling as it used to be. No fuss was raised, though, because it wasn’t that big a deal. More months passed and they noticed that the water’s color was now different. Still, though, there didn’t seem to be any cause for alarm. More months passed and some of the citizens started getting sick. It wasn’t even suspected, however, that the town’s water might be the reason. Finally, a full-fledged epidemic broke out and some of the citizens lost their lives.

Panic now ruled the streets and the town council voted unanimously to have a team do a thorough investigation to discover the cause of the epidemic. You can guess how the report came back: a polluted, unsafe water supply. Obviously, the town council had failed to realize just how important “The Keeper of the Springs” was. Even though they hadn’t known it, he was the true secret to the town’s livelihood and happiness.

Going into this new year let me encourage you to realize that Jesus Christ is “The Keeper of the Springs” for you. As long as your relationship and fellowship with Him are right, there will be a purity and vitality to your life and you will know the joy, comfort, and inner peace that are only found through Him. But, on the other hand, if you foolishly chose to ignore Him and try to operate without Him, at some point you will have to deal with the costly fallout from your choice. Jesus doesn’t want that for you, and you wouldn’t want it for yourself if you had enough sense to know it. So this year, day in and day out, night in and night out, build your life around Jesus and let Him be “The Keeper of the Spring” for you. If you’ll do that, you can rest assured that He will keep the issues of your life clear and pure.

Filed under Choices, Comfort, Commitment, Discipleship, Inner Peace, Joy, New Year, Personal Holiness, Priorities Tagged with , , , , , ,

Remembering Your Homeland & Culture

December 28, 2011 Leave a Comment

An Englishman went to visit his longtime friend, a British military officer who was stationed in an African jungle. When he finally arrived at the officer’s hut and entered it, he was startled to find his friend dressed in formal clothing and seated at a table beautifully set with polished silverware and fine china.

When the Englishman asked the officer why he was all dressed up and seated at such a table in the middle of nowhere, the officer answered: “Once a week I follow this routine to remind myself of who I am – a British citizen. I want to maintain the customs of my real home and live according to the codes of British conduct, no matter how those around me live. I want to avoid substituting a foreign culture for that of my homeland.”

The parallel to living the Christian life is obvious. Even though we Christians are currently stationed in a foreign land, we are still citizens of the kingdom of heaven. As the Bible says, we are “strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (Hebrews 11:13) but “our citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20). These facts are not in question. What is in question is whether or not we are substituting the foreign culture of this world for that of our homeland.

Filed under Character, Discipleship, Doing Good, Dress and Appearance, faithfulness, Heaven, Personal Holiness Tagged with , , , ,

Baptists, Sacrifices, & Mark Twain

November 14, 2011 Leave a Comment

A man was robbing a train and came to the seat of a preacher. The robber shoved his gun into the preacher’s chest and said, “Gimme your money.” The preacher said, “But you wouldn’t rob a preacher, would you?” The robber replied, “Oh, you’re a preacher? What denomination are you?” With great pride the preacher answered, “I’m a Baptist.” At that the robber switched his gun to his left hand, extended his right hand to shake the preacher’s hand, and said, “Put ‘er there, preacher, I’m a Baptist too.”

Consider the following verses:

1. 1 Samuel 15:22: So Samuel said: “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams.”

2. Proverbs 15:8: The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is His delight.

3. Proverbs 21:3: To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.

You’ll note that each of these Old Testament verses speaks of sacrifices. To understand this, you must understand that the Old Testament Jews lived their lives under that body of law that God had given to them through Moses. Sacrifices were a fundamental, foundational part of that law. The law laid out incredibly precise rituals for the offering up of: burnt offerings, peace offerings, sin offerings, trespass offerings, freewill offerings, and heave offerings. These categories of offerings all involved the sacrificing of animals. Also, the law laid out precise rituals for grain offerings and drink offerings. Israel even had an entire tribe (the tribe of Levi) that served as its priesthood, and those priests, dressed in their priestly garments, faithfully offered up all these offerings at the tabernacle (later on, the temple).

You see, when a Jew brought an offering to a priest for it to be offered up, that was nothing less than an Old Testament worship scene. They didn’t have churches or synagogues. They had the tabernacle (the temple) and the law-prescribed sacrifices. That was how they publicly and corporately worshiped the Lord.

So do you see the teaching? Let’s use the Proverbs 21:3 verse as an example. If it was being written to the Christian realm today, it could read something like this:

To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable than going to church, praying, reading your Bible, dropping money in an offering plate, or giving to missions.

The point is that God really isn’t all that impressed with your attempts to worship Him when you spend the vast majority of your life doing sinful things. What you call “worship” doesn’t fix, excuse, or legitimize a lifestyle of habitual sin. If you lay drunk all week and then come to church on Sunday, that’s a problem. If you smoke pot or do other kinds of drugs Monday through Saturday and then come to church on Sunday, that’s a problem. If you roll out of bed with a person to whom you aren’t married and then drive to church, that’s a problem. If you won’t pay your bills, but you drop $10 in the offering plate every Sunday, that’s a problem. If you engage in dishonest business practices but you say the blessing before every meal, that’s a problem. If you treat people like dirt but you read your Bible every night, that’s a problem.

There’s an old story that supposedly comes from the life of Mark Twain, and it sums up what I’m trying to say here. So I’ll close with it. A man once said to Twain, “I’m going to take a trip to Israel. When I get there I’m going to hike to the top of Mount Sinai, and then I’m going to shout down the ten commandments.” Twain looked at the fellow and said, “I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t you stay home and keep them?” That was a good comeback then, and today’s church-goers and professing Christians could still learn something from it.

Filed under Backsliding, Character, Commitment, Discipleship, Doing Good, faithfulness, obedience, Personal Holiness Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

“Yes, We Know That Man”

October 4, 2011 Leave a Comment

A missionary assigned to a foreign land zealously embraced his new ministry by promptly telling a crowd of the natives about Jesus. He spoke of Christ’s love, compassion, and power to heal. As he spoke, he was surprised to see the people smile and nod their heads. It was as if they already knew all about Jesus.

Finally, at the end of his sermon, the missionary asked, “And how many of you have ever heard of this man?” Oddly the entire crowd indicated that they knew of him. This puzzled the missionary and he began to further question them. What he discovered was that they all thought he was talking about a Christian doctor who had lived among them at one time and faithfully ministered to them.

Now that, fellow Christian, is what you are after. To live such a life that the unlearned could so closely associate you with Jesus is the ideal. The apostle Paul described it this way:

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

There’s an old gospel hymn entitled “Let Others See Jesus In You.” Christian, do your best to live out that ideal today. You’ll be amazed at the impact it makes not just upon you but upon others as well.

Filed under Character, Discipleship, Doing Good, God's Work, Influence, Ministry, Missions, Personal Holiness, Service, Witnessing Tagged with , , , ,

The Spirit Is Willing, But the Flesh Is Weak

August 24, 2011 2 Comments

Let’s take a test. For years, a man makes a habit of going camping on Sunday rather than attend church. One Sunday he sees a mountain lion coming toward him. He says, “God, if you will get me out of this danger I promise that I will start going to church every Sunday.” As soon as he finishes that quick prayer, the mountain lion calmly walks away.

Now here’s the test question: Do you think that man will honor the “deal” that he made with God? The answer is: There’s a pretty good chance that he will go to church that first Sunday, but if nothing else changes he won’t keep up the attendance for long.

You see, it takes more than a quick moment of desperation to create a lasting turnaround in your life. As a pastor, I’ve seen so many people who were going through difficult times make grandiose boasts about what all they were going to do for the Lord if He helped them out of their messes. But how many of those boasts actually came to pass, even after the Lord gave the help? Maybe there were two or three, but right now I can’t even remember there being that many.

One Sunday morning I preached and gave an invitation, and a woman promptly made her way to the altar and knelt for prayer. When I went over and asked her why she had responded to the invitation, she told me something along the lines of she wanted to dedicate herself more completely to Jesus. She was crying hot tears and her face was something of a mess from the running makeup. I knew that she was sincere. I also knew that she was a good Christian woman who had some areas of her life that could have been more submitted to Christ’s lordship. So I prayed with her and asked the Lord to help her be even more devoted to Him. The emotion of the moment was almost palpable.

But did that woman even show up for the evening service that same Sunday? No. As I looked around the sanctuary that night and didn’t see her, I was in virtual disbelief. That was the moment when I truly understood for the first time just how fickle and inconsistent we are when it comes to serving the Lord.

Jesus knew us all too well. On the night of His arrest, He took Peter, James, and John into the garden of Gethsemane with Him. He said to them, “Stay here and watch with Me.” Then He walked alone a little further into the heart of the garden and prayed, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will” (Matthew 26:39). Following that prayer, He returned to where He had left Peter, James, and John at their watch-post. And what did He find? Rather than keeping diligent watch, they had all drifted off to sleep.

After a fairly strong rebuke, Jesus summed up the problem by saying, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41). In my opinion, those words perfectly describe why that Christian woman didn’t come back for church that Sunday night. Her spirit was willing, but her flesh was weak. When she had devoted herself more fully to Jesus in the altar that morning, she had meant it. In that moment, she couldn’t have meant it any more. But, unfortunately, that moment had soon passed and the rest of her life had come crashing back in upon her.

I’m saying all of this to encourage you to work at eliminating the fickleness from your walk with the Lord. Try to avoid the roller-coaster devotion that marks the lives of so many people. I know that your flesh is weak. So is mine. But we can’t keep using that excuse to consistently fail the Lord and not live up to the commitments we have made to Him. And, by the way, we needn’t expect Him to keep sending mountain lions to keep us committed either.

Filed under Backsliding, Change, Church attendance, Commitment, Discipleship, faithfulness, obedience, Personal Holiness Tagged with , , , , ,

Life’s Army Barracks

August 22, 2011 Leave a Comment

The Presbyterian preacher Harry Rimmer told the story of a young man who entered the army. This young man was in the habit of studying his Bible in his bedroom each evening and then kneeling down to pray before retiring for the night. He knew, however, that the army barracks would be a real test of that nightly routine.

The barracks certainly didn’t disappoint as the young fellow found himself surrounded by scores of rough servicemen. They joked around, made crude comments, and cursed. His first instinct was to read his Bible by keeping it half covered under his blanket. But then a wave of conviction came over him and he thought, “I’m a Christian! I must take my stand for the Lord. I won’t hide my faith. I’ll just do as I did at home.” He then took his Bible, read a chapter, and knelt down to pray quietly beside his cot.

When the other men noticed what the young man was doing, a few of them sneered. But in just a few minutes the barracks became strangely quiet as others who respected the new recruit’s devotion hushed those who sneered. After a while the talk began again, but this time without the crudeness and cursing.

The next night when the young man opened his Bible eight other men dug out theirs and did the same. Within a month every soldier in the outfit respected the young Christian so much that they would defend him against anyone who dared criticize him. Even more than that, they would bring their troubles and questions to him and ask for counsel. Rimmer concluded the story by saying, “He influenced more men for Christ than half a dozen chaplains could have in a year of Sundays.”

This world can be a raw, coarse, vulgar place, and being a Christian who tries to live a holy life in its midst can be difficult. Do the people at your workplace tell dirty jokes? Do some of your fellow students use profanity? Do you feel like you would be mocked and ridiculed if you were caught on site reading your Bible or praying? Welcome to your army barracks.

What would Jesus have you do? Well, what example did He set? Did He isolate Himself in a cave atop a mountain and shun the “real” world? No. Did He only converse with His devout followers, people who thought and spoke like He did? No. Did He act one way in private but another way in public? No. To the contrary, He lived what He preached. And what was that? He told His followers to resist the urge to hide their light under a basket and let it, instead, shine before men (Matthew 5:15-16).

So, Christian, I hope you take this post as a call to arms. Stop hiding your light under a basket. Those around you need to see it burning brightly for your Savior. Who knows what domino effect you taking a stand for Christ might start? My guess is that there are others in your setting who are just as offended with certain things as you are. They just need a leader to show them how to create change. And that leader could be you!

Filed under Adversity, Bible Study, Character, Courage, Discipleship, Doing Good, faithfulness, God's Will, God's Word, Influence, obedience, Persecution, Personal Holiness, Scripture, Witnessing, Work, Youth Tagged with , , , , , , ,

The Importance of Speaking Up

July 25, 2011 Leave a Comment

Well, we made it to and from the beach safely, and I really appreciate those of you who prayed for us along those lines. Not surprisingly, my next few posts will involve stuff that I experienced while on vacation.

I’ll start with something that happened on our last night out on the town, the Thursday night before we checked out Friday morning. Since the boys had never been in the attractions and stores of Ocean Boulevard, we drove up there and made a night of the whole scene. Royce went into the Ripley’s Haunted Adventure while Ryan went into the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum. Then they both went into one of the arcades and played some skeet ball. That’s the game where you roll the ball up the ramp and try to make it jump into certain holes. Some holes are worth more than others, and in the end you are rewarded tickets based upon your point total. You then take those tickets to the counter and swap them for a prize. The more tickets you have, the better prize you get.

Okay, so Ryan goes to one lane and Royce goes to another. When Ryan finishes his game, his tickets start rolling out of the machine appropriately. But when Royce finishes his game nothing happens, even though he has accumulated enough points to earn some tickets. So now Tonya and I have a decision to make. Do we let the injustice go and chalk it up to bad luck? Or do we take the time to go and tell a worker what has happened? We decided to go and tell. (I’ll admit that our decision was helped along by the fact that Royce was none too pleased about not getting any tickets while Ryan did.)

After we reported the problem to the girl at the counter, she came over and very politely said, “I’ll call our maintenance guy, but this will take a few minutes. Will you wait?” At this point, I was beginning to regret saying anything. Who knew where this dude might have to come from? But as the old saying goes, “In for a penny, in for a pound,” so we agreed to wait.

Thankfully, the young man wasn’t too long in coming. He took a quick look at the machine and saw that it was simply out of tickets. He then pulled out a big roll of tickets and reloaded the machine. That’s when things got interesting. As he finished the reloading, he said, “Now get ready because whatever number of tickets this machine should have been giving out is going to come out, and your boy is going to get them all.” Ever the pessimist, I thought to myself, “Sure, sure. We’re probably talking four or five extra tickets here. The thing probably ran out just before Royce played it.”

But then those tickets started rolling out and spilling down onto the floor! My eyes lit up and so did Tonya’s. Royce squealed in delight. Ryan, the classic older brother, stood there green with jealousy because he had actually gotten a higher score than Royce and should have ended up with more tickets than him. On and on the scene went. A few seconds into it the worker grinned at us and reminded us, “Remember, I’m giving him all these tickets.”

So, what was that final total? We ended up with approximately 275 free tickets. To put that total into perspective, Ryan had won about ten with his game and Royce had earned even less than Ryan. Obviously, that machine had been out of tickets for a long time and a great number of kids had played it and taken their losses without reporting the problem. We ended up splitting the tickets between the boys and letting them go nuts cashing them in for multiple gifts at the counter.

And that brings us to the spiritual application to all this. It’s a simple one, really. Since God has called us Christians to be “salt” and “light” in this world, He will bless us when we take the role seriously and speak out when something is wrong. You see, He doesn’t want us to just sit back and let wrong go unchallenged. He doesn’t want us to act like the rest of the world and just accept things as they are. The state of things never gets any better that way. Somebody has got to put in the time and effort to say something.

Christian, could it be that you are right now in the throes of some situation in which you are wondering whether or not you should speak up? Could it be that you are the one whom God is burdening to throw out some salt or turn on a light? Believe me, I know that speaking up is not the easy thing to do, and I’m not trying to needlessly stir up trouble for you here, but the plain fact is that sometimes life’s skeet-ball machines don’t get fixed until someone points out the problem. And, Christian, there are times when that someone has just got to be you because the situation has your name all over it.

Now, will the person whom you correct appreciate your attempts? That’s tough to answer because it depends upon the person. But keep in mind that you aren’t responsible for how the person responds. Once you’ve gone to the counter and reported the problem, once you’ve thrown out the salt, once you’ve turned on the light, your job is done. And God will then reward you somehow or someway with some tickets of blessing. I can’t say exactly what those tickets will be, but you can rest assured that you’ll be satisfied with them.

Filed under Choices, Discipleship, Doing Good, faithfulness, God's Will, God's Work, Honesty, Influence, Ministry, obedience, Problems, Reward, Service, Sin, The Tongue Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

In Training To Be Used Mightily

July 7, 2011 Leave a Comment

A budding young soloist went to a great Italian musician for voice training. The master handed him a piece of music and said, “Practice this for one full year and then return here.” The request seemed a bit strange, but for the next twelve months the young man faithfully did his practicing.

At year’s end, he returned to the musician, confident that the master would change his assignment and give him a new, higher grade of music to learn. But it didn’t happen. The master simply said, “Practice the same piece for another year and then return here.”

Somewhat discouraged, the young singer returned home and begrudgingly rededicated himself to his task. For twelve more months he practiced that same piece of music over and over again. Then he returned again to the musician. As he went, he thought, “Surely this time I will be given a new piece to learn.”

Once again, however, the master instructed him to work at the same piece of music for another year and then return. But this time the young man objected. He said, “No, I want to practice something new. I have worked hard, and I deserve to move on up to a more advanced lesson.” Stubbornly, though, the master held his ground, saying, “No, my son, the same lesson this year.”

So now the young man had a decision to make. Should he continue to trust in the great musician and keep practicing the same piece of music? Or should he question the musician’s expertise and seek training elsewhere? Two long years had come and gone. The young singer had worked hard and done as he was told, but he wasn’t seeing any fruit for his labors. Maybe it was now time to cut his losses with the supposed master and change everything.

The young man pondered the issue for quite some time, but in the end he decided to stick with the great musician’s training. So he went back to practicing the same old lesson and faithfully worked at it for yet another year. Then he returned to the master.

But this time the singer wouldn’t be given any more preparatory assignments. Instead, the great musician simply looked at him and said, “Go, my son. You have nothing more to learn.” The young man was both shocked and relieved, but he took the master at his word and began auditioning for singing parts. He nailed performance after performance, no matter how difficult the song, and eventually he rose to become the leading singer in all of Italy.

How was such a thing possible? It was possible because that one piece of music that the singer had so faithfully practiced all those years held within it a certain combination of notes, and that combination had allowed his vocal cords to be developed to perfection. The master, of course, had known this all along.

Christian, it may be that God has had you working on the same assignment for years now. And it also may be that you have grown very tired of singing it. So you’ve begun to long for something new, something different, something that will break you out of your rut. Perhaps you are right now even contemplating going off and doing your own thing because you are tired of living the life in which God has stationed you.

Well, let me ask you this: Could it be that for the past several years God has faithfully been preparing you to do great and mighty works for Him in the future? And, furthermore, could it be that even now your spiritual “vocal cords” are almost perfectly trained to handle these great works? You see, at this point, the last thing you need to do is short-circuit God’s whole plan by foolishly abandoning your master’s training and making some change that you shouldn’t make.

Call this a warning. Call it a word of encouragement. Call it what you will. But just know that God never sends out His servants unprepared, and if He still has you working on the same old assignment, then your training must not be fully completed yet. You ask, “How much longer will it be?” I don’t know. All I know is that there will come a day when God will send you forth to put all of your training to incredible use for Him.

Filed under Adversity, Choices, Commitment, Disappointment, Discipleship, Doing Good, faith, faithfulness, God's Timing, God's Omniscience, God's Will, Impatience, Ministry, Music, obedience, Patience, perseverance, Rebellion, Reward, submission, Teaching, Temptation, Trusting In God Tagged with , , ,

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