Challenged Accepted?

Do you like a challenge? If yes, here are some questions you can ask yourself:

• Where is my life going in relation to my faith in Jesus Christ?
• What is my life goal, my mission statement—the reason I get up in the morning?
• Do I have more or less enthusiasm for my faith than I had a year ago, two years ago…?
• Is Jesus really Lord of my life, the captain of my ship? Or do I just say he is?

There’s a way of measuring whether Jesus is at the center of our entire life and all that we have, or whether he’s slipped to the back of the bus. Maybe it didn’t happen deliberately or suddenly, but perhaps over time the original glow of faith somewhat faded a bit. Whatever the reason, Jesus is just not front-and-center anymore. So what’s the best way of gauging Jesus’ current standing in our lives?

Easy.

We just need to see how often we think about others. They take an important place in our lives only when Jesus takes first place. Ask yourself: Is Jesus so much in control of my life that I would actually sell my house if he wanted me to just to free up my cash for some kind of ministry? Do I put myself and my wants before how I can serve him—either in the church or community? How forgiving and loving am I? When Jesus is second, or third, or tenth, we can be sure that the needs of others won’t even be on the screen. It’s me and mine—my wants, my hurts, my desires, all the way.

Before you feel guilty over this (that’s not my intention), try doing this: stop and think about your life mission statement. I mean actually list on paper the order of things in your life that are absolutely essential. Our family has done this, talking through, brainstorming, and listing on a large sheet of paper to be placed on the wall what was really important to us. We came up with six things.

So as the weeks and months passed by, we frequently took a glance at what we thought most valuable and checked our daily schedule of events against what we had written. It kept us on target. Service to Christ and others was high on the list, and sometimes we had to dump what was scheduled that day, or we had to change things around to accommodate our priorities.

You’ve heard of the tyranny of the urgent? It raises its head every day of the week. Keeping your life mission statement in front of you is like the difference between flying by instruments and flying by the seat of your pants. If every day is determined by whatever we feel at the moment is a must do, then we’ll abandon our instruments and will end up running out of gas and going down somewhere in the desert.

So try, prayerfully and intentionally, putting your priorities down in writing, and reduce all the hubbub that occupies your time. Cut back on the endless sports, dance and music schedules, and gifting the latest technology must have for your children. Is this God’s plan for them? If not, use the precious opportunity to actually sit down with them and get to know them. Downsize your possessions—reduce your work hours and spend time with your spouse and family. Allow the hold of possessions to loosen by actually giving yourself and your goods to the glory of God.

The end result is a happiness and contentment that can’t be found any other way. This is in fact what Jesus said would happen.

Photo by Alan via Flickr