Be a contributor instead of a consumer.
Don't approach your faith with the goal of simply seeing how much you can personally gain from it; be willing to make the sacrifices Jesus calls you to make so you can contribute to the world through your faith. Don't reduce the church to just a vendor of religious services; view at as missionary community called to spread the Gospel's message in the world. Rather than thinking of church as just a place to enjoy music and uplifting messages while making friends, think of it from God's perspective - as a place to learn how to become more like Jesus and serve others in need to fulfill His purposes. Pray for the ability to shift your focus from inward to outward. Ask God to help you discover, develop, and use the talents He has given you to help make the world a better place. Be alert to the opportunities He places in your path, and be willing to respond to them.
“Don’t approach your faith with the goal of simply seeing how much you can personally gain from it; be willing to make the sacrifices Jesus calls you to make so you can contribute to the world through your faith.”
Maybe it is just me, and I think and analyze too much; and being the English teacher that I still am, I look for too many meanings. Guess that comes from trying to teach Shakespeare. Maybe it’s just that I’m wordy. Naaaaahhhhhh! Not an English teacher. But…no matter your topic, most, if not all, of your sentences lend themselves to a thought and/or a comment; and that’s a good thing because you give bunches of people bunches of topics to which they can respond. Boy, talk about the salmon swimming down stream when all the others like him are headed up and/or the one smiley face in the midst of so many frowns. Isn’t it a shame; but in order for many people to do as you suggest in the first two sentences, they would have to undergo a radical transformation of attitude about life and about themselves. What you say we need to do is diametrically opposed to the way of much of the world and also, I think, contrary to the belief that many church-goers actually have that they can achieve the Kingdom of God by good works. How they do not understand God’s grace. How glad I am that I know a pastor who constantly keeps telling his sheep that the only way they will pass through the Narrow Gate is if they realize that life on earth is not about “me” but “Him.”
“…view [the church] as a missionary community called to spread the Gospel’s message in the world.” And I might add with a metaphor, view the church as the classroom in which we are taught so that we can go into the world and teach — teach the most important lesson of all life — that no one can expect to live eternity in Heland if he or she lives a life on earth in Meland.
Doesn’t it make you wonder why it is that so many people don’t see, understand, and/or realize that besides praising and glorifying God, their purpose is to “make disciples and make a difference” for Him? Isn’t it scary that because the earth is the domain of the devil and filled with so much darkness that the devil has shrouded the eyes of so many with darkenss so that “they do not see” and will not see the Way, the Truth, and the Life until it is too late. How tough it must be for pastors who what to constantly be “saving one more soul after one more soul” for God and try so diligently and faithfully to do so only to find that the sheep continue to “look through the glass darkly”? And don’t you figure that when God opens the eyes of the blind that the devil gets so upset because he is on the verge of losing a soul? No wonder we are bombarded by so many attempts — both physically and mentally — on his part to drive us away from the Light and back into the darkness?
I wonder why people don’t want to be like Jesus? They don’t know Him, and so they don’t know what they are missing? They are afraid that they can’t measure up, so why try? They are so blinded by the darkness that they don’t want the alternative lifestyle that He offers? They don’t realize that He is loving and forgiving and that He died for our mistakes so when we make them, He picks us up, dusts us off, and tells us with forgiveness and compassion and understanding to try again? Wonder if people can’t imagine Jesus doing that because they themselves don’t do it for the people around them — thus if they don’t live that way, they can’t imagine others living that way? Don’t know. I just know that I am thankful for my pastor who is constantly faithful in the telling of God’s Truth so that God can be successful in leading His sheep to “live like Christ.”
“Pray for the ability to shift your focus from inward to outward. Ask God to help you discover, develop, and use the talents He has given you to help make the world a better place. Be alert to the opportunities He places in your path, and be willing to respond to them.”
My pastor calls this the Ministry of Interruption and illustrates the concept by the story of the Good Samaritan. I’m not always successful at doing this; but thanks to the sermon he preached on this, I strive and choose to live a large portion of my life doing just that.
If someone were to ask you what is your mission field, what would you answer? Most, I imagine, would say it is where they work; unfortunately, however, I am afraid, many people would not have the slightest idea what you were asking them? I agree with you that “the world would be a better place” if everyone realized that where they were at any given moment in time is exacly where God wants them to be and that He is calling on them in that mission field, even if it is Walmart with a disgruntled clerk, to interrupt what they are doing to “make a disciple and a difference” for Him and in His name.
But you know, to do that they would have to surrender control of their life and admit to themselves that, paradoxically, in surrender is their victory and that “God not only has a purpose for their life” but that He is in control of that life. And in a world in which winning is everything, most people don’t want to lose in order to win.